Global Pulse

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大洋洲

  • Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 infants

    Pakistan hospital fire kills 14 infants

    A devastating fire that broke out in the maternity wing of a major public hospital in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad has claimed the lives of 14 infants, triggering official grief and a top-level investigation into the tragedy, national authorities confirmed Wednesday.

    The blaze ignited on the third floor of the Mother and Child Health Ward at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), one of the country’s leading public healthcare facilities, according to an official statement released by Islamabad’s district administrative office. All 14 victims confirmed dead were infants, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif confirmed publicly.

    Both Sharif and Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi issued separate statements expressing profound mourning over the devastating loss of young lives. “Such a tragedy involving innocent children is an irreparable loss,” Sharif said. He added that authorities must launch a full review of all circumstances that led to the fire, pinpoint all parties responsible for any negligence, and take the strongest possible disciplinary or legal action against anyone found at fault.

    As of Wednesday afternoon, officials have not yet determined the exact origin or cause of the blaze. Islamabad Chief Commissioner Sohail Ashraf told reporters that emergency services received the first alert about the fire shortly before 7:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT). Rescue teams and law enforcement personnel deployed to the scene immediately, and managed to bring the fire under full control in a timely manner, Ashraf added.

    Reporters from Agence France-Presse on the ground outside PIMS Wednesday witnessed distraught family members, including one woman crying openly, while a man cleared shattered glass from two broken ward windows. Uniformed security personnel were posted at the entrances of the facility to control access as the investigation got underway.

    This latest fatal fire has drawn renewed attention to Pakistan’s persistent pattern of deadly blazes in large public and commercial buildings, a crisis widely linked to inadequate safety regulations, outdated building codes, and widespread lax enforcement of existing rules.

    Major deadly fires have struck repeatedly in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi over the past decade alone. Just this past January, a fire at a Karachi shopping center killed more than 65 people. In 2023, another blaze at a Karachi shopping mall killed 11 people. In 2021, 16 factory workers died in a Karachi industrial fire. The deadliest incident in recent memory dates back to 2012, when a massive fire engulfed a Baldia Town garment factory in western Karachi, killing at least 250 laborers. The building had no functional fire escapes to allow workers to flee.

  • ‘Our patron saint’: Tennesseans mourn local hero Dolly Parton

    ‘Our patron saint’: Tennesseans mourn local hero Dolly Parton

    When news of legendary country music star Dolly Parton’s passing broke Tuesday, thousands of fans and local residents across her home state of Tennessee turned out to honor the woman whose decades of generosity and artistry reshaped their region forever. In Sevierville, Parton’s hometown, hundreds gathered at the bronze statue of the singer outside the Sevier County Courthouse, where her iconic hit “Jolene” drifted through the evening air as mourners left bouquets of flowers and shared personal memories of the icon.

    Callie Konane Rickards, a 43-year-old costume designer and lifelong fan who placed flowers at the statue’s base, told Agence France-Presse, “We’ve always called her our patron saint of Tennessee.” Families with small children joined local police, lifelong residents, and out-of-town tourists at the site, with many stopping to take selfies next to the statue that shows Parton strumming her signature acoustic guitar. “I just feel like her sparkle lives on in all of us,” Rickards added.

    While global music superstars including Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, and Jack White have released public tributes honoring Parton’s legacy, her neighbors in East Tennessee offered deeply personal reflections on a star who never lost connection to her working-class, mountain roots. Locals highlighted Parton’s unifying presence, her lifelong commitment to her Appalachian home, and the way she wrapped the region in a uniquely warm, approachable country glamour that drew visitors and opportunity to the area.

    Twenty-four-year-old local resident Jonah La Grand, who wore a vintage Dolly Parton t-shirt to the gathering, still speaks of Parton in the present tense, saying, “Dolly is like a mother to everyone who lives here. She gives so much growth to the county and the surrounding Appalachia — economically, yes, but she has also uplifted us spiritually. She’s known worldwide for being so kind.”

    Mourners repeatedly pointed to Parton’s long record of generosity to the community, specifically her rapid support for local families when devastating wildfires tore through the region a decade prior. Even today, her nearby Dollywood theme park stands as the single most vital economic engine for Sevier County, drawing millions of tourists annually and supporting thousands of local jobs. Her pioneering Imagination Library, meanwhile, has put free books into the hands of millions of children across the globe, opening access to literacy for young people who would otherwise lack that opportunity.

    As dusk fell, local residents gathered at Bluffs, a popular neighborhood watering hole just outside Sevierville, to raise a glass to Parton, sing karaoke versions of her greatest hits, and swap stories of the legend who grew up alongside them. Among the crowd was Brent Allen, Parton’s 49-year-old cousin, who grew up just a short walk from the singer’s childhood home in the hills of Locust Ridge outside Sevierville. “She’s Aunt Granny to me,” Allen told AFP, right before a bar patron launched into a raucous, crowd-joining performance of Parton’s iconic hit “9 to 5.”

    Allen recalled that Parton grew up in extreme poverty alongside 11 siblings in the hills of East Tennessee, and he says that much of the progress and transformation the region has seen over the past 50 years can be traced directly to Parton’s tireless work and charitable giving. “Sevier County is 100 percent the way it is today for no other reason than for Dolly Parton,” he said. “I think she has ascended to sainthood now.”

    Allen also remembered how Parton always made time for her family, showing up for reunions, holiday celebrations, and even funerals no matter how busy her global touring and career schedule became. What impressed him most, he said, was her down-to-earth, grounded demeanor that brought people together across dividing lines of politics, class, and background. “I hope Dolly is our generation’s Mother Teresa,” Allen said. “She made everybody feel like they were special.”

    Plans for Parton’s memorial are already underway: a private funeral will be held first for immediate family and close personal friends, followed by at least one public memorial service that will be open to fans, expected to take place in either Nashville or her hometown of Sevierville.

  • Iran says Hormuz strait still closed despite transit corridor talks

    Iran says Hormuz strait still closed despite transit corridor talks

    Nearly six months into the open conflict between the United States, Israel and Iran, the strategic Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most commercial and all military traffic, Tehran’s top diplomatic officials confirmed Wednesday, even as discussions with Oman over a proposed temporary transit corridor and joint mine-clearing operations move forward. The closure, which has already upended global energy markets by blocking roughly 20% of the world’s daily oil and liquefied natural gas exports, will remain in place until Washington fulfills its unmet commitments from a June bilateral memorandum of understanding, ends its military campaign against Iran and lifts harsh economic sanctions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state news agency IRNA.

  • Drought-hit Danube gives way to fossil hunt in Bulgaria

    Drought-hit Danube gives way to fossil hunt in Bulgaria

    As record-breaking drought parches much of Europe, the shrinking waters of the Danube, the continent’s second-longest river, have exposed long-submerged lands along its banks – creating an unexpected opportunity for fossil hunters and historians to uncover artifacts hidden for thousands of years. In northern Bulgaria, just a short distance from where a massive mammoth skeleton was uncovered last month, around 20 volunteer enthusiasts gathered for a guided fossil-hunting expedition organized by the Ruse Regional History Museum, hunting for more prehistoric remains exposed by the retreating river.

    Among the participants was Aleksandar Denkov, a 30-year-old amateur photographer, who excitedly called out his discovery: a small yellowish fossil tooth protruding from the dry river sand. While the group did not locate additional full mammoth remains to match last month’s find, their day of searching yielded a range of significant discoveries. Museum experts identified the recovered artifacts as the remains of an ancient large mammal likely to be an aurochs or ancient European bison, a partially preserved subfossil horse jawbone, and a cluster of fossilized oysters dating back an estimated 60 to 65 million years.

    Climate scientists have repeatedly confirmed that the ongoing extreme drought gripping Europe has been intensified by human-caused climate change, bringing widespread disruption to communities across the continent. Low river levels have crippled commercial cargo shipping operations and forced output cuts at nuclear power plants that rely on river water for cooling. But alongside these serious negative impacts, the dropping water levels have unlocked a trove of historical and prehistoric remains that have remained hidden for decades, even millennia.

    Recent weeks have seen a steady stream of discoveries along the full length of the Danube. Beyond the Bulgarian fossil finds, receding waters have revealed World War II-era shipwrecks in Austria and Serbia, as well as the remains of two German World War II soldiers and a preserved military motorbike in the heart of Budapest, Hungary.

    Krasimir Kirov, a curator at the Ruse Regional History Museum, explained that the museum launched the guided expedition to introduce the public to fossil identification, share guidance for safe exploration, and foster public interest in local history. After the initial mammoth discovery was announced last month, Kirov says he received dozens of calls from local residents reporting potential finds of their own. That initial discovery was made by a local resident from the nearby village of Ryahovo, located roughly 30 kilometers from Ruse, who spotted a massive mammoth jawbone, tusk fragments, shoulder blade remains, and a femur by chance while walking the newly exposed banks.

    News of the guided search spread quickly on social media, drawing a flood of interested participants and already generating requests for a follow-up expedition. Before the search began, organizers shared simple ground rules: volunteers would move forward in a coordinated line, stop the entire group when a find was spotted by raising a hand, and strictly avoid touching any unknown metal objects that could be leftover unexploded ammunition. But enthusiasm quickly overtook discipline, and the organized line dissolved within minutes as participants scattered to explore the exposed banks on their own.

    For many participants, the expedition offered a once-in-a-lifetime chance to connect directly with ancient history. “It’s a very rare opportunity to feel this close to history,” explained Ekaterina Yordanova, a 34-year-old psychologist who joined the hunt. She acknowledged the concern over the Danube’s record-low levels: “Seeing the Danube in this state is worrying, but it also gives us the chance to discover new things that we would never have access to otherwise.” Vladimir Tsvyatkov, a 44-year-old local business owner who attended the expedition with his wife and two children, said the family came primarily “for the adventure.” Having grown up along the Danube’s banks, he noted he had “never seen the Danube so dried up” in his lifetime.

    The discoveries stretch far beyond the Bulgarian stretch of the river. Further upstream in Bulgaria, the low water levels have allowed archaeologists to fully document the foundations of a 2-kilometer Roman bridge first inaugurated under Emperor Constantine I in 328 AD, a structure that has remained largely submerged for centuries. Along other parts of the river, dozens of World War II military remnants have been exposed. In central Austria, two sunken German warships that were damaged during 1945 fighting with American tanks and scuttled by their own crews now jut clearly from the water. In Serbia, near the town of Prahovo, the receding river has exposed dozens of additional German warships scuttled in 1945 by retreating German forces to block the river and slow the advance of the Soviet Red Army. In Budapest, the German War Graves Commission has confirmed the discovery of two German soldiers’ remains and a preserved military motorbike.

    Data from the European climate observatory Copernicus confirms that these record-low water levels are unprecedented for the month of July across most of Europe’s major river basins, highlighting the severity of the ongoing climate-driven drought.

  • Pakistan’s girls fight for their place in the boxing ring

    Pakistan’s girls fight for their place in the boxing ring

    Karachi’s gritty Lyari neighborhood, a once gang-violence-plagued community where sports have long woven through the fabric of daily life, is now home to a quiet, powerful revolution: young Pakistani girls trading domestic expectations for boxing gloves and determination.

    Thirteen-year-old aspiring boxer Hoorain Zahra is at the forefront of this movement. Sweat beading on her forehead, she drills through punch combinations during sparring sessions at a local Lyari gym, her gaze fixed on following in the footsteps of her role model, 21-year-old trailblazer Aliya Soomro. Last year, Soomro made national headlines when she claimed victory at an international boxing match in Bangkok — a historic win for a Pakistani woman, where deep-rooted patriarchal and cultural norms still relegate women to the home, barring them from public athletic spaces like gyms and sports clubs.

    The nation’s female boxers reclaimed public attention in late July, when 22-year-old Fatima Zahra made history as Pakistan’s first female Commonwealth Games boxing medalist, taking home bronze in the 60kg category in Glasgow. For girls like Hoorain, who grew up in Lyari’s sports-obsessed community, Fatima and Soomro’s wins are more than just athletic achievements — they are proof that women can thrive in a sport that society insists is not for them.

    For these young athletes, even stepping through the gym door is an act of defiance. Hoorain, adjusting her black hijab between drills, told AFP that widespread societal belief holds girls should never leave the home unchaperoned, framed by false claims that women are unsafe in public spaces. “But it is not possible to live without going outside, you have to go out,” she says. Around her, fellow fighters prepare for their session, layering modest athletic wear that keeps them covered while they train. The gym itself is unassuming: a cramped, worn room in a run-down Lyari building, where whirring overhead fans offer only intermittent relief from sweltering summer heat when power becomes available in the late afternoon.

    The man behind this decade-long movement to open boxing to girls is 56-year-old coach Ustad Younis Qambrani, who opened his gym doors to female fighters more than 10 years ago, starting with his own two daughters as his first trainees. “I believed women’s boxing was very important for girls,” Qambrani explained. “The girls who train with us go outside with great confidence. They show great courage and are not afraid of anything.”

    The fighters’ struggle to claim space for their sport mirrors Lyari’s own turbulent modern history. For decades, the neighborhood was labeled one of Pakistan’s most dangerous, flooded with weapons and drugs after it became a key transport hub during the Soviet-Afghan War. A 2013 paramilitary crackdown rooted out gang violence, but the political vacuum that followed was filled by conservative religious parties that won power in 2018. Those parties tightened restrictions on girls’ public activities, even banning bicycle riding for young women in some local areas.

    Even amid growing conservative pressure, Lyari’s sporting culture has refused to die. The neighborhood has long been famous for producing elite Pakistani athletes, including a new generation of unshakable female boxers. Crucially, many local families have stood behind their daughters’ athletic ambitions: both Hoorain and Soomro count on full support from their parents to pursue their boxing dreams.

    Soomro, who is building on her 2023 Bangkok win toward future international competitions, says girls deserve the exact same access to sports as boys. “Our society regards girls as very weak. People think girls are weak and cannot do anything,” she said from a nearby mixed-gender boxing arena. “But I believe girls can do everything, sometimes even more than men.”

  • Australian police hunt thieves in $250,000 oyster heist

    Australian police hunt thieves in $250,000 oyster heist

    Authorities in New South Wales, Australia, are currently searching for a gang of perpetrators responsible for one of the country’s most unusual high-value seafood heists, police confirmed Wednesday. The massive theft targeted a commercial oyster farming operation located close to Taree, a coastal town roughly 300 kilometers north of Sydney. In total, the thieves made off with more than 300 bulk bags holding a staggering 400,000 farmed oysters, which carry a combined market value of approximately 350,000 Australian dollars, equal to around 250,000 U.S. dollars.

    What makes the case even more unusual is the timing: the theft occurred at some point earlier this year, but local law enforcement only received the official stolen property report from the farm’s owners on Tuesday. As investigators work to piece together details of the coordinated heist, New South Wales Police have issued a public appeal, urging any community members with relevant tips, even seemingly minor information about suspicious activity near the farm around the time of the theft, to contact authorities immediately.

    Oysters hold a prominent place in Australia’s food culture, serving as a staple on brunch menus, at seafood buffets, and on high-end restaurant dining tables across the nation. Local Australian oyster varieties are widely celebrated by chefs and seafood lovers alike for their distinctive rich, creamy texture and briny, flavorful profile, making stolen oysters a relatively easy commodity to pass off to unsuspecting buyers on the black market.

  • Major childcare provider Edge Early Learning in voluntary administration, separate centre in Melbourne shut

    Major childcare provider Edge Early Learning in voluntary administration, separate centre in Melbourne shut

    Thousands of families across Australia have been thrown into chaos this week following dual disruptions in the early childcare sector, where one major national provider entered voluntary administration and an independent Melbourne centre shut its doors abruptly with less than a day’s notice.

    The larger disruption affects families enrolled at Edge Early Learning, a multi-state provider that serves communities across Queensland, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory. Last week, the company confirmed it had appointed restructuring firm KordaMentha as voluntary administrators to carry out an urgent review of the provider’s financial and operational standing.

    In a public statement addressing concerned parents, Edge Early Learning Chief Executive Chris Chambers emphasized that administrators are working closely with existing management to keep all centres running as close to normal as possible during the review period. “At this stage, all centres are expected to continue operating as usual and families should continue to attend their centres,” Chambers said. “We understand that this news may cause concern, and we want to reassure you that our immediate priority is to ensure the ongoing operation of all centres with as little disruption as possible to children, families and educators. The Voluntary Administrators’ intention is to provide a stable environment for children while we work through this process.”

    David Johnstone, the lead KordaMentha administrator assigned to the case, echoed this commitment, noting that the care, safety and wellbeing of enrolled children remain the highest priority throughout the entire administration process. He also confirmed that families should continue sending their children to their regular Edge Early Learning centres while the urgent operational assessment is completed.

    In a separate, more disruptive development, a standalone Melbourne childcare centre, Avondale Heights Childcare and Early Learning Centre, closed permanently on Tuesday with only 12 hours’ notice to parents. Liquidators from SSB Advisory, the firm appointed to wind down the centre’s operations, explained that the shutdown came after a planned sale of the business fell through when the prospective buyer was unable to complete the transaction. The centre’s directors had been covering operating costs out of their own pockets for an extended period to keep the facility open, but could no longer continue to subsidize operations, the liquidator confirmed.

    “On behalf of the company, I sincerely apologise for the distress and inconvenience caused by having to arrange alternative childcare arrangements at such short notice,” the liquidator said in a statement sent to parents overnight. SSB Advisory has yet to issue further comment on the closure beyond the initial notification to families.

  • High quality, low risk: record number of Japanese in Premier League

    High quality, low risk: record number of Japanese in Premier League

    The 2024-25 Premier League campaign has kicked off with a historic milestone for Japanese football: a record 10 Japanese players have been registered to compete in England’s top flight, marking the highest number of Japanese athletes to feature in the league in a single season. With the summer transfer window still open, more Japanese talent could make the move to English clubs before it closes, signaling a growing appetite for Japanese players among Premier League sides.

    Among this season’s high-profile arrivals is 24-year-old goalkeeper Zion Suzuki, who recently completed a transfer from Italy’s Parma to Aston Villa. If Suzuki makes his competitive debut, he will become the first Japanese goalkeeper to ever play in the Premier League. Other notable incoming transfers include former Arsenal defender Takehiro Tomiyasu, who moved to Crystal Palace, midfielder Hidemasa Morita, who joined Hull City, and forward Daizen Maeda, who made the switch from Scottish side Celtic to newly promoted Ipswich Town. These new arrivals join a well-established cohort of Japanese stars already plying their trade in the league, such as Brighton’s dynamic winger Kaoru Mitoma, Liverpool’s tough-tackling midfielder Wataru Endo and Crystal Palace playmaker Daichi Kamada, plus Ao Tanaka of Leeds, Kota Takai of Tottenham Hotspur and Tatsuhiro Sakamoto of Coventry.

    Football agents and analysts point to multiple factors driving this surge in Japanese talent in the Premier League. Joel Pannick, a FIFA-registered agent with CAA Base who represents around 60 Japanese players, told AFP that English clubs have steadily grown more confident that signing Japanese players is a low-risk, high-reward investment. “There aren’t many examples of clubs signing Japanese players and having issues with their adaptation, with their personality, with their integration into the squad, with discipline,” Pannick explained. “The risk element that teams previously feared, this fear of the unknown, has gone because with each example of a successful Japanese player it gives more confidence.”

    The current generation of Japanese players also arrives better prepared for life in English football than their predecessors, thanks in large part to a cultural shift led by veteran defender Maya Yoshida. Yoshida, who spent nearly eight years playing for Southampton in the Premier League, served as Japan’s national team captain ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup and mandated that all players sitting at his lunch table communicate only in English. That emphasis on language acquisition has created a more globally minded cohort of players: nearly every current Japanese national team player who competed at the 2022 World Cup speaks conversational English, removing one of the biggest barriers to adaptation for overseas players. Suzuki, for his part, already speaks fluent English, a skill that is expected to smooth his transition to Aston Villa.

    Veteran Japanese football journalist Yoshiyuki Osumi believes Suzuki’s potential breakthrough as a Premier League goalkeeper could have a transformative impact on Japanese football. “He is 10 or 20 years ahead of his time for a Japanese goalkeeper,” Osumi said. “If he can play in the Premier League as a goalkeeper, I think that would have a big impact on Japanese football.”

    This moment comes more than two decades after the first Japanese player signed for a Premier League club, when Junichi Inamoto joined Arsenal in 2001. Inamoto left for Fulham a year later without ever making a league appearance, but a string of successful Japanese players have since paved the way for the current boom. Shinji Kagawa, Shinji Okazaki, Takumi Minamino and Wataru Endo have all won Premier League titles during their time in England, proving that Japanese players can compete at the highest level of the English game.

    Two broader shifts have also opened the door for more Japanese players in the Premier League. Post-Brexit changes to UK work permit rules have forced English clubs to expand their scouting networks beyond Europe, creating new opportunities for top talent from Asia and other regions. Additionally, the overall quality of Japanese players has improved dramatically in recent decades, while the evolution of the Premier League itself has aligned with the strengths of Japanese footballers. “The Premier League has become more tactical, and there are more teams that play as a coordinated unit,” Osumi noted. “That kind of football is something Japanese players find very easy to adapt to.”

    Most Japanese players now cut their teeth in other European leagues – such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal – or England’s second-tier Championship before moving up to the Premier League, a path that allows them to adapt to European football gradually. Currently, eight more Japanese players compete in the Championship, suggesting the pipeline of Japanese talent into the Premier League will only grow stronger in coming seasons.

  • Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data

    Social media use on the rise among Australian under-16s after ban: data

    Months after Australia introduced landmark legislation banning children under 16 from accessing major social media platforms, new usage data reveals that underage engagement with apps including TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat has rebounded sharply, nearing pre-ban levels in many age groups. This world-first policy, implemented last December, has been watched closely by governments across the globe, with the United Kingdom, France and other nations already moving to adopt similar restrictions, and New Zealand announcing this week that it will introduce its own strict regulatory bill that could hit non-compliant tech giants like Meta with fines equal to up to 10% of their annual global revenue.

    The new usage figures were released Wednesday by Qustodio, a leading provider of parental control software, which tracks anonymized monthly activity from Australian households using its services. The company defines active usage as any child opening an app for at least five consecutive minutes at least once per month. Immediately after the ban went into effect, Qustodio recorded a broad, across-the-board drop in underage social media use. But that initial dip has not been sustained: across the two tracked under-16 age groups — 10 to 12 years old and 13 to 15 years old — usage across all three major platforms has climbed steadily back up.

    The rebound is most stark for TikTok, the world’s fastest-growing short-form video platform. Among 13 to 15-year-olds, 25.9% still actively use the app, only 1.1 percentage points lower than the pre-ban baseline. For 10 to 12-year-olds, TikTok usage is just 0.06 percentage points below pre-ban levels, a statistically negligible difference. Alongside major social platforms, the data also shows a growing shift toward WhatsApp, the Meta-owned messaging platform that is not covered by Australia’s current age ban.

    Yasmin London, Qustodio’s global online safety expert, outlined multiple potential explanations for the unexpected rebound. Many underage users may be evading the ban’s safeguards by using virtual private networks (VPNs) to mask their location, or by lying about their date of birth during account registration. More critically, London noted that the data suggests the core issue may be that the restrictions themselves are simply not being enforced effectively enough to block widespread access. “It could really be as simple as they’re just accessing these apps because the restrictions aren’t working,” she said.

    Australian federal officials have defended the ban, framing it as a critical safeguard to protect young people from well-documented harms including online bullying, mental health distress, and the impact of predatory recommendation algorithms that prioritize engaging, often harmful content to keep users on platform. However, Qustodio’s findings align with earlier independent research: a peer-reviewed study published in June by a team of Australia-based academic researchers found little evidence that the ban had driven a lasting drop in teenage social media engagement.

  • AFL 2026: Collingwood coach Craig McRae addresses Scott Pendlebury’s future

    AFL 2026: Collingwood coach Craig McRae addresses Scott Pendlebury’s future

    One of Australian Football League’s most decorated modern players, Collingwood Magpies champion Scott Pendlebury, remains undecided on whether he will hang up his boots at the end of the current season or extend his legendary playing career, according to Magpies head coach Craig McRae. The uncertain future of the league’s all-time games record holder comes as a recent hamstring injury rules him out of the club’s high-stakes wildcard final clash against the Western Bulldogs this Friday, which will be played in front of a capacity crowd at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

    Pendlebury, a veteran midfielder who cemented his place in AFL folklore earlier this year when he broke the league’s all-time games record, delivered one of the most iconic Anzac Day match performances in the competition’s history just months ago. He left the field in a hamstring injury against the Brisbane Lions just over a week ago, in what many fans are already speculating could be his final appearance in the black and white stripes.

    When asked to share an update on Pendlebury’s thinking around his future, McRae told reporters the 400-game veteran is still weighing up his options, with the outcome of his decision currently too close to call. “It’s probably 50-50, to be honest, I could see opportunities for him to play on and retire,” McRae said. “I’m sure he’s weighing up those things.”

    Rumors have circulated in recent weeks that if Collingwood chooses not to retain Pendlebury on its senior playing list for the 2025 season, the veteran could move to a rival club to extend his playing career one last time. McRae declined to comment on that speculation, noting that all future plans are currently Pendlebury’s to evaluate alongside his management team.

    “These are decisions he’s obviously weighing up with him and his management,” McRae said. “It is a big story because he is a remarkable player for such a long time, but we will give him respect and the time that he’s asked for.”

    McRae emphasized that the club has maintained consistent open communication with Pendlebury throughout the season, and has deliberately stepped back to let the club’s greatest ever player make a decision on his own timeline. He added that the pair held a direct conversation about the future over the weekend, pushing back on narratives that the club was pushing Pendlebury toward an immediate call.

    “Yeah multiple times, I spoke to him Saturday about that. I heard some narrative about Pendles letting the player dictate their own decisions for the future,” McRae said. “Having these conversations with Pendles for the last five years around what’s best for him and best for us gives me great comfort that he’ll do what is best for the footy club.”

    McRae said he has full confidence that Pendlebury will only choose to continue his playing career if he is confident he can still perform at the elite level that has defined his 18-year career. “He won’t go on and play, in my eyes, unless he can perform at a certain level – so that gives you great confidence, ‘Hey, over to you mate, you make those decisions when you think they’re appropriate’,” he said.

    While Collingwood is leading the conversation around Pendlebury’s future, McRae noted the final call is not entirely in the midfielder’s hands, but the club is committed to centering Pendlebury’s input in the process. “(The decision) not entirely in his hands but led by conversations with him. We’re an open dialogue around that – I am giving him space as requested and he will make that decision at the end of the year and we’ll let him have that,” McRae added. For Pendlebury to take the field again this season, Collingwood will need to advance deep into the 2024 finals series, a path that starts without their games record holder this Friday night.