Global Pulse

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大洋洲

  • ‘I will admit…’: Nathan Cleary yet to make up his mind on next deal, reveals scenario that could block move

    ‘I will admit…’: Nathan Cleary yet to make up his mind on next deal, reveals scenario that could block move

    One of the National Rugby League’s most decorated playmakers has opened up about the tricky personal factors complicating his upcoming contract decision, as his Penrith Panthers side notched a hard-fought win and locked in a new club record on Thursday night.

    28-year-old Nathan Cleary, the four-time premiership-winning halfback and New South Wales State of Origin hero, is currently contracted to Penrith through the end of the 2027 season, but the sport’s November 1 free agency window is fast approaching. If he declines to re-sign with the Panthers before the deadline, Cleary is widely expected to draw offers that shatter NRL salary records from a host of suitors across the globe.

    Potential destinations for the star playmaker have been heavily speculated in recent weeks. The newly proposed Bears and Chiefs expansion franchises have been cited as keen suitors, with the Papua New Guinea-based franchise able to offer extraordinary tax incentives that would outstrip any competing deal, even when third-party sponsorship agreements are added to other clubs’ offers. Overseas options have also been floated: a move to the European Super League or a switch to professional rugby union would allow Cleary to live closer to his partner, footballer Mary Fowler.

    Yet a return to the club where he debuted in 2016 remains a very real possibility, even after his father Ivan Cleary, the Panthers’ long-time head coach, steps down from his role at the end of the 2025 season.

    One reported move that Cleary has all but ruled out, however, is a shift to the New Zealand Warriors. Cleary, who spent much of his childhood in Auckland and grew up supporting the club, explained that a jump to the Warriors would put his younger brother Jett’s first-grade NRL dreams at risk.

    21-year-old Jett Cleary, who has not yet made his senior NRL debut, currently plays for the Warriors’ reserve side. Last season, he helped lead the team to both NSW Cup and State Championship titles, and is under contract with the Auckland club for another 12 months. With two other playmakers, Luke Metcalf and Luke Hanson, set to depart the Warriors at the end of the current season, Jett Cleary is on the cusp of earning his first senior call-up. Nathan Cleary noted that his arrival at the club would block that hard-earned pathway.

    Speaking to reporters Thursday night after Penrith’s win over Parramatta, Cleary said he is still weighing all his options and has not made a final decision on his future.

    “I still don’t know. I’m still in the process of thinking it over. I’m not sure yet,” Cleary said. “I wasn’t born in Auckland, but I grew up a fair bit there and I will admit I was a Warriors fan growing up. But at the end of the day, even if that was an option, I’d be blocking my little brother’s pathway. I’m not too sure about that. I want to put a bit more thought into it. The last few weeks there has been a bit of a comedown from Origin, and I’ve been trying to get back into routine with the boys and get back into consistent training. That sort of (contract) stuff will work itself out in the background.”

    Beyond Cleary’s contract update, Thursday’s match was a historic night for the Panthers. Winger Tom Jenkins scored his 26th try of the 2024 season, breaking a 21-year-old club record set by club legend Rhys Wesser, who notched 25 tries in the Panthers’ 2003 premiership-winning campaign. Jenkins still has a slim chance of breaking the all-time NRL single-season try record of 38, set by Dave Brown all the way back in 1935.

    Penrith ground out a gritty 14-12 win over Parramatta despite spending extended periods of the match with two players sin-binned. Ivan Cleary praised Jenkins’ historic achievement after full-time, highlighting the winger’s underrated all-around game that has allowed him to hit the record mark.

    “It’s a very, very good record. ‘Milky’ (Jenkins) has been amazing,” the Panthers head coach said. “Dyl (fullback Dylan Edwards) was saying a couple of weeks ago that his defence doesn’t get much recognition compared to the tries he scores, but his all-round game this year has been very consistent, and that’s probably why he’s been getting the tries. Rhys Wesser is a try machine and a bit of a legend in our club, so it’s pretty cool.”

    Right now, Cleary and the Panthers are fully focused on adding another premiership title to their already decorated collection, with contract talks set to play out behind the scenes in the coming months.

  • Is ‘superstar’ Pogacar’s Tour de France domination boring?

    Is ‘superstar’ Pogacar’s Tour de France domination boring?

    As 27-year-old Slovenian cycling star Tadej Pogacar stands on the cusp of matching the all-time record of five Tour de France titles, a fierce debate has broken out across the global cycling community over one pressing question: does his unprecedented dominance of the sport’s most prestigious race make professional cycling boring to watch?

    The conversation is not a new one, either. Periods of prolonged dominance by all-time greats have sparked the same discussion for decades. When Spanish legend Miguel Indurain claimed five consecutive Tour de France titles between 1991 and 1995, and when British star Chris Froome took four wins in five editions from 2013 to 2017, critics leveled the exact same accusation that is being aimed at Pogacar today. Interestingly, both Indurain and Froome were 27 and 28 respectively when they claimed their first Tour titles, putting Pogacar’s trajectory in a striking historical context.

    What makes Pogacar’s run even more remarkable is that according to conventional cycling wisdom, the 27-year-old is only just entering what should be his physical peak. That means fans could be looking at several more Tour de France titles from the Slovenian in the coming years. For his part, Pogacar makes no apologies for loving the feeling of crossing the finish line first. “Winning is nice. I will never deny it’s a nice feeling to cross the line first,” he told reporters this week.

    Not everyone in the peloton sees his dominance as a bad thing, however. Pogacar’s top rival, 26-year-old Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel, who currently sits second in the general classification after Thursday’s 18th stage, says racing against the Slovenian superstar is anything but boring. Evenepoel, who has pushed Pogacar hard in this year’s race, earning back-to-back stage wins on a mountain top finish and an individual time trial, says he views Pogacar’s historic performances as a benchmark to aspire to.

    “I see it as being super impressive, the performances that he’s putting out,” Evenepoel said. “I’m looking up to that, I try to learn from that and I try to reach that level as well. He’s a superstar, he’s the best rider ever, so I don’t think people should consider it as boring. I understand if you watch television and he goes whenever he wants, it looks boring. But for us, it’s a challenge and it’s a big honour to race against a champion like that. You should not forget, we are witnessing history.”

    Evenepoel’s admiration is shared by veteran cycling journalist David Walsh, who has covered the sport since the 1980s and witnessed first-hand the dominant eras of Indurain, Froome, and the drug-fueled reign of Lance Armstrong. Walsh, who famously exposed Armstrong’s decades-long doping scheme, says he has no doubts about the legitimacy of Pogacar’s success, and argues that the Slovenian makes domination feel exciting, unlike past dominant riders.

    “There were Tours where other riders were just as dominant,” Walsh told AFP. “Laurent Fignon for example in 1984 was really dominant. In a much less exciting way Miguel Indurain was dominant in the early 90s. That left me a little bit cold. This one doesn’t. Pogacar makes domination exciting.”

    Walsh drew a comparison to tennis legends Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, noting that unlike those two greats, who struggled on certain court surfaces, Pogacar wins across every type of terrain, even on routes that experts argue should not play to his strengths. “He’s a generational talent and my argument would always be, enjoy him because we shall almost certainly not see his like again,” Walsh added.

    Other outlets have offered a different perspective on the root of the perceived boredom. British publication *Cycling Weekly* argues that it is not Pogacar’s aggressive, high-risk riding style—marked by daring long-range attacks and superhuman uphill acceleration—that makes races feel dull, but rather the unmatched strength of his UAE Emirates-XRG team, which controls races from start to finish to support their star leader.

    French journalist Alexandre Roos of *l’Equipe* offered a historical perspective, noting that what feels boring to contemporary viewers often becomes legendary when viewed through the lens of history. Roos pointed to Eddy Merckx’s iconic 1969 stage 17 victory on the route to Mourenx, a ride that was dismissed as boring by spectators at the time but is now celebrated as one of the greatest performances in Tour de France history. “The stage to Mourenx was boring,” Roos said. “But almost 60 years later, we still talk about that stage to Mourenx as a legendary Tour stage.”

    As the 2024 Tour de France heads into its final stages, all eyes remain on Pogacar as he chases history, and the debate over whether his dominance is a curse or a gift to cycling looks set to continue for years to come.

  • Victoria’s unemployment rate surges as experts warn of ‘economic problems’

    Victoria’s unemployment rate surges as experts warn of ‘economic problems’

    Fresh official labor data released this week has laid bare the deepening economic underperformance of Victoria, Australia’s second-most populous state, which is now dragging down national employment metrics and amplifying fears of additional interest rate hikes that could further strain household budgets across the country.

    Data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Thursday showed Australia’s overall unemployment rate held steady at 4.4% for the second consecutive month, defying forecasts of a small uptick. But beneath this stable national headline, Victoria’s labor market tells a far grimmer story: the state’s unemployment rate currently sits at 5.1%, a full 0.7 percentage points above the national average. To make the disparity starker, nearly one-third of all unemployed Australians – a total of 200,000 people – now reside in Victoria.

    Independent veteran economist Saul Eslake explained that Victoria’s drag on the national economy has been building for decades, a trend that predates recent state Labor governments but has worsened significantly under current leadership. “If you strip out the boost to headline gross domestic product growth that comes from Victoria’s faster population growth, the state has underperformed the rest of Australia for a long time,” Eslake told Sky News. “Over the past 20 years, Victoria has slipped from being one of Australia’s wealthiest states to now ranking as either the second or third poorest, depending on the metric you use.”

    Eslake added that per capita household disposable income in Victoria is now lower than the figure recorded in Tasmania, with only South Australia recording a lower income level across the country. He also noted the state has become increasingly reliant on federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) redistribution revenue to prop up its ailing public finances and sluggish growth.

    The weak jobs numbers have reignited political pressure on Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan, just three months out from the state’s November 28 election. Unconfirmed public rumors have circulated that Allan could face an internal leadership challenge as early as next week, when the state parliament reconvenes for its final sitting before the poll.

    Beyond the state-level political and economic impacts, the uneven labor data has reinforced market and analyst expectations that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) will move to raise interest rates further to combat persistent inflation, with some experts warning the hikes could hit Victoria harder than any other state.

    Warren Hogan, managing director of EQ Economics, warned that Victoria and New South Wales are the two most vulnerable state economies to additional monetary tightening, due to their high concentrations of mortgage holders and elevated household debt levels. Hogan projects that the RBA could implement up to three more rate hikes, adding a total of 75 basis points to the official cash rate and pushing it back above 5%.

    “Victoria already has a soft economy, and the state government’s massive and expanding footprint is impacting every sector,” Hogan said. “If we see multiple rate hikes, this state will get hit extremely hard.” He added that ongoing high government spending across Australia has added to inflationary pressures: national government spending has grown at roughly 3% annually, outpacing the economy’s potential growth rate of around 2%, eliminating a key potential source of relief for inflation.

    Over the past two years alone, Victoria’s unemployment rate has climbed by almost two percentage points, rising from a low of around 3.25% to its current level above 5%, Hogan noted.

    Cameron McCormack, senior portfolio manager at global investment firm VanEck, echoed the expectation for more rate hikes, forecasting at least one additional increase before the end of 2024, with a significant chance of two hikes. He explained that the resilience of the national labor market is keeping wage and inflation pressures elevated, removing the RBA’s incentive to pause rate hikes.

    “Australia’s labor market is refusing to cool, which means it isn’t giving the RBA the breathing room it needs to hold rates steady,” McCormack said. “With the labor market remaining close to full employment for a second straight month, the RBA has clear room to focus squarely on taming inflation.”

    He pointed to two key additional inflationary pressures: the 4.75% increase in minimum award wages that took effect this month, and the recent sharp rise in global oil prices. Labor-intensive service sectors such as hospitality and restaurants are already starting to pass higher wage costs through to consumers, McCormack said, and if energy and wage pressures begin to feed more broadly into core inflation, the RBA could pull forward its next rate increase.

    Looking at the fine print of Thursday’s jobs report, national employment actually rose by 76,000 positions in June, though 47,000 of those new roles were part-time positions, while 13,000 full-time jobs were lost. The unemployment rate held steady rather than falling only because the labor force participation rate – a measure of how many working-age people are active in the labor market – rose 0.3 percentage points to 67%, expanding the pool of people counted as unemployed.

  • Radio giant has legal win in stoush with radio queen Jackie O

    Radio giant has legal win in stoush with radio queen Jackie O

    One of Australia’s biggest radio broadcasters, ARN, has secured a partial early win in its prolonged, multi-million dollar legal battle with former star presenter Jacqueline “Jackie O” Henderson, after a federal judge ruled the network could rely on sworn testimony from Henderson’s long-time on-air partner Kyle Sandilands in its defense.

    The legal conflict traces back to a dramatic on-air confrontation between Henderson and Sandilands, co-hosts of the top-rating *Kyle & Jackie O Show* on ARN’s KIIS FM, that unfolded in February this year. During a heated on-air exchange centered on Henderson’s public interest in astrology, Sandilands launched a blunt personal attack, telling his co-host she was “off with the fairies”, “unfocused”, and did not “give a shit” about the program. Within weeks of the public fallout, both hosts were cut from the network, and their existing long-term contracts were terminated early.

    Within months of their dismissal, both Sandilands and Henderson launched separate Federal Court lawsuits against ARN and its subsidiary, the Commonwealth Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Sandilands’ case reached a confidential settlement in mid-June, with the network agreeing to a payout package valued at $12.09 million to be distributed over three years. On the same day the settlement was finalized, Sandilands and his long-time manager Bruno Bouchet submitted formal sworn affidavits to the court connected to the ongoing proceedings.

    ARN and CBC moved quickly to seek permission to use these pre-trial affidavits from Sandilands and Bouchet as evidence in their defense against Henderson’s claim, which is scheduled to go to a full trial before the Federal Court later this year. Henderson’s legal team immediately challenged this move, arguing the affidavits were submitted as part of Sandilands’ separate settlement process and could not be repurposed for the network’s case against their client.

    On Monday, Federal Court Justice Angus Stewart ruled against Henderson’s challenge, siding entirely with the broadcaster in the preliminary dispute. In his official court declaration, Justice Stewart confirmed that neither Sandilands’ June 16 affidavit nor Bouchet’s matching sworn statement were bound by any restriction that would prevent ARN from using them in its defense against Henderson’s claims.

    Henderson has continued to press forward with her claim against the network, alleging that her early termination constituted unlawful dismissal and unlawful adverse action under Australian workplace law. After she told ARN management she could no longer continue working alongside Sandilands following their public on-air clash, the network chose to scrap her 10-year, $100 million original contract, prompting her lawsuit. Henderson is seeking a minimum of $82 million in compensation for wrongful termination.

    In its formal defense filing, ARN has pushed back against all of Henderson’s core claims. The network argues that the bullying complaint Henderson raised against Sandilands did not comply with formal requirements under Australian workplace legislation. ARN has also told the court that Henderson could have pursued a formal bullying grievance while remaining assigned to the breakfast show during the investigation process, but she chose not to do so because her ultimate goal was to secure a different on-air time slot at the network.

  • US vows to punish Iran after Houthis strike tankers

    US vows to punish Iran after Houthis strike tankers

    A sharp escalation of tensions across the Middle East has sent shockwaves through global energy markets and raised urgent warnings of catastrophic regional conflict, after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement launched targeted strikes on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea this week. The flare-up comes as fighting already resumes over the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, pitting the United States and Iran against one another just weeks after a short-lived ceasefire collapsed.

    Within hours of the Houthi attacks, which sent international benchmark Brent crude spiking 7% to breach the $100 per barrel threshold for the first time since May, US President Donald Trump issued a stark warning that Iran would face full accountability for the actions of its allied militia. In a post on social media Thursday evening, Trump announced a “major military punishment” would be delivered imminently to both Iran and the Houthis, and confirmed the US would tap hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets held under American control to compensate for any damage to commercial vessels and cargo in the region.

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a grim assessment of the escalating crisis to an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, warning that the situation is rapidly spinning out of control and teetering on the brink of an unthinkable full-scale regional war. “One crisis feeds another. One escalation triggers the next,” Guterres warned, echoing growing global alarm over the disruption to key international shipping lanes that carry a large share of the world’s energy supplies.

    Economic policymakers have already sounded the alarm over the potential fallout from the energy disruption. European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned Thursday that the ongoing energy shock could intensify further, driving already elevated inflation higher across the eurozone and fueling market expectations of an interest rate hike as early as September. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius added that the outlook for de-escalation remains grim, noting “nothing — absolutely nothing — suggests that a ceasefire, let alone peace, could be reached” for the region at this stage. He also warned that major oil-importing economies face dire consequences if shipping disruptions continue through the Red Sea and Strait of Hormuz.

    Iran has pushed back against US threats, with army spokesperson Mohammad Akraminia confirming that Iranian retaliatory strikes will continue for as long as US attacks on Iranian infrastructure and coastal areas persist. This week alone, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has joined the Houthi offensive, claiming strikes targeting US assets across Jordan and Kuwait, halting three commercial tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and vowing to maintain pressure on Western and allied interests in the region. Both Jordan and Kuwait have confirmed intercepting incoming drone and missile strikes, with no reported casualties from the attacks so far.

    On the ground, US Central Command confirmed it has conducted 12 consecutive nights of airstrikes targeting Iranian assets across the region. Iranian state media reported Thursday that US strikes have killed two people near the Iraq-Iran border at Shalamcheh, and that two US missiles hit targets near Bushehr, home to Iran’s only civilian nuclear facility — a site that has been repeatedly targeted by US strikes in recent months. Additional reports from Iranian state outlet Tasnim News confirmed a separate missile strike on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.

    Confirming the Red Sea attacks, Houthi officials said they targeted two Saudi tankers, the Encelia and the Layla, after declaring a full blockade of all Saudi ports in response to the resumption of regional conflict. British maritime security agency UKMTO confirmed that a tanker’s master reported a hit from an unknown projectile approximately 70 nautical miles southwest of Al Shuqaiq, sparking a fire onboard the vessel. Saudi Arabia has officially confirmed the strike on the Encelia, but has not yet commented on the reported attack on the Layla.

    The new Red Sea front represents a significant worsening of the crisis, as it endangers Saudi Arabia’s ability to redirect oil exports around any prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s daily oil supply transits. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian summit in Manila, framed the Houthi intervention as a manipulated escalation, claiming the militia had been “suckered” into joining the conflict by Iran. “The Houthis largely were smart and stayed out of all this throughout the conflict, but they now apparently have gotten themselves suckered into this, going after Saudi Arabia and their ships,” Rubio told reporters.

    Diplomatic efforts to de-escalate remain underway, with Oman — a longstanding mediator between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia — confirming it is working to resume peace talks between the two parties and expressed “great concern” over the unfolding crisis in the Red Sea. Domestically, the renewed conflict has grown increasingly unpopular in the US, where midterm elections are looming in November. The US House of Representatives recently passed a symbolic bipartisan resolution — backed by opposition Democrats and a handful of Trump’s fellow Republicans — calling on the president to halt military action against Iran.

  • US unveils new tariffs on 60 partners as Trump rebuilds trade agenda

    US unveils new tariffs on 60 partners as Trump rebuilds trade agenda

    The United States announced Thursday a sweeping set of new tariffs targeting 60 global trading partners, framed around forced labor compliance concerns, that will replace an expiring temporary import duty first rolled out earlier this year by the Trump administration. The new levies, set to enter into force Friday, carry tiered rates between 10 and 12.5 percent and cover major world economies including China, India, and the European Union.

    U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated in the official unveiling that Washington has enforced a national ban on forced labor imports for nearly a century, and argued it is long past due for all U.S. trading partners to adopt similarly rigorous rules.

    The move marks the administration’s latest step to rebuild President Trump’s signature tariff regime, after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a sweeping set of his earlier tariffs in February. That ruling severely limited the president’s ability to impose steep duties without explicit congressional authorization, delivering a major legal setback to his trade agenda.

    Following the court decision, the Trump administration used alternative executive authority to reimpose a temporary 10 percent baseline tariff on most qualifying imports, but that measure carried a 150-day expiration that falls on Friday. The new round of duties, first proposed in June following a months-long regulatory investigation, replaces the expiring measure and has been structured to withstand future legal challenges far better than the earlier temporary tariffs, administration officials and trade experts note.

    Under the new tiered structure, trading partners that have already enacted their own formal forced labor import bans face the lower 10 percent rate; this group includes Canada, the European Union, and the United Kingdom. Nations deemed not to meet the compliance standard face the higher 12.5 percent levy, with major economies like China and Japan falling into this higher-tariff bracket, a senior U.S. official confirmed to reporters.

    Notably, goods already covered by sector-specific Trump-era tariffs on steel and aluminum are excluded from the new measures, and all imports qualifying for duty-free access under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) also remain exempt.

    Beyond the new forced labor-linked tariffs, Washington is currently conducting separate investigations into 16 global economies over allegations of excess industrial capacity, probes that could result in additional targeted duties down the line. Much like the original pre-ruling tariff framework, these future measures could carry varying rates tailored to individual countries.

    Trade experts say the strategy of imposing a baseline tariff while retaining the threat of additional future levies is intentional, designed to preserve U.S. negotiating leverage with trading partners. Greta Peisch, a trade lawyer and former USTR general counsel now serving as a partner at Wiley Rein, told Agence France-Presse that the structure creates clear incentives for countries to adhere to existing trade agreements they have signed with Washington. Peisch added that by investing months in formal investigations ahead of imposing the new duties, administration officials have sought to build robust legal protections against future court challenges.

    Josh Lipsky, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said the new framework makes it far more likely that the tariffs will remain in place for the rest of Trump’s term, signaling that the world’s largest economy is shifting toward a significantly more protectionist trade posture going forward.

    Former U.S. trade official Ryan Majerus, now a partner at King & Spalding, noted that the administration has actively been searching for legal pathways to continue aggressive tariff deployment. He added that Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act – the authority USTR Greer used to impose the latest duties – provides more policy flexibility than many observers recognize, allowing officials to adjust tariff rates over time in response to new developments.

    The new tariff announcement comes on the heels of two other recent aggressive trade actions by the Trump administration: just weeks ago, a 25 percent tariff on a range of Brazilian goods went into effect, following a year-long investigation that found Brazil engaged in unfair trade practices. Earlier this week, Trump also ordered a 50 percent tariff on dozens of Canadian products, citing what the administration calls Ottawa’s discriminatory treatment of American alcohol, automobile, and dairy exports. That Canadian tariff is set to take effect in one month and relies on an untested new legal provision, which Lipsky says demonstrates the administration still has a range of untapped trade tools at its disposal.

    Lipsky added that the flurry of new tariff actions signals that existing U.S. trade agreements remain fragile, despite past negotiations. Even so, the European Union – which signed a new trade pact with Washington in recent months – says it expects the U.S. to uphold all commitments laid out in the EU-U.S. joint statement.

  • ‘Stifle the magic’: Melbourne coach Steven King on his uncomplicated brand

    ‘Stifle the magic’: Melbourne coach Steven King on his uncomplicated brand

    Ahead of a pivotal Friday night showdown against perennial contender Geelong at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, first-year AFL senior coach Steven King has opened up about the unorthodox philosophy that has turned the Melbourne Demons around from a disappointing 14th-place finish in 2023 to a top-six contender with five weeks remaining in the 2024 season.

    King’s winning formula upends the modern trend of hyper-structured, data-heavy coaching: he prioritizes innate player talent and instinct over rigid game plans and information overload, a choice that has unlocked an exciting brand of football that draws fans to stadiums.

    “The last thing I want to do is paralyse our group with too much structure, too much information, and I feel like that will stifle the magic we’ve created within,” King told reporters, repeating a core belief that has guided his first season at the helm.

    The 2024 AFL season has seen a clear shift toward faster, higher-scoring football, and King has adapted his approach to match this new era. He notes that top teams across the competition now capitalize on momentum to put up big scores quickly, a trend he has built the Demons’ game plan around.

    “All players get drafted because they’ve got talent and they can play – you still have to respect the contest and defence side of the game, that’s a must,” King explained. “But players love to show, express themselves with ball in hand, play the game – that’s why they’re all here because they can play.”

    King argues that a passive, pressure-absorbing style of play is no longer competitive in today’s game, where momentum swings can decide outcomes in minutes. “If you can’t put a hundred points on the board now and fight with the big boys, you’re sort of down a weight class or two,” he said. While hitting that score mark is not an official team key performance indicator, King says he wants the Demons to be dangerous in all phases of play, particularly when they have possession.

    A former Geelong captain himself, King admits he is still learning the craft of senior coaching, and counts the “delicate art” of stepping back as one of the most important lessons he has picked up in his debut season. Early on, he says he recognized his own tendency to overcomplicate game plans by adding extra layers to try and push the team into the top four.

    “But I feel like everything you add as a coach, there’s a risk that you take something off the group as well,” he noted. King relies on a mix of his experienced assistant coaching staff and veteran Demons leaders, including captain Max Gawn, who is fully aligned with King’s open game plan, to strike the right balance between structure and freedom. “We sort of lean on each other on how much info the group needs,” he said.

    This approach has already delivered results: after finishing 14th last season, the Demons currently sit sixth on the ladder, well positioned to qualify for the post-season. King has made it clear from the start that he wants his side to play an exciting, “bums-on-seats” brand of football that appeals even to neutral fans, and he says the team is eager to showcase that style in the high-profile Friday night MCG clash against his old club.

    “We’ve been craving it and playing a brand of footy that stacks up and people will want to watch,” King said. “To get this prime-time slot is a great recognition for our playing group, for what they’ve been doing throughout the year. We want to make sure we do the occasion proud by playing a brand of footy that even neutrals go, ‘That was entertaining and a good game of footy’.”

  • Albania police teargas protesters against Trump-linked resort

    Albania police teargas protesters against Trump-linked resort

    On a tense Thursday in Albania’s capital Tirana, security forces deployed tear gas and water cannons to disperse hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the country’s parliament building, capping more than a month of sustained public anger over a luxury coastal tourism development linked to the Trump family. What began as a targeted environmental campaign against construction in a protected coastal wildlife reserve has grown into a broader protest over government transparency, public corruption, and misallocated public funds, uniting environmental activists, opposition politicians, and ordinary citizens against the ruling administration.

    The wave of daily demonstrations first launched in late May, sparked by plans to build a sprawling luxury resort complex connected to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, the daughter and son-in-law of former U.S. President Donald Trump. The proposed development is located on a protected, unspoiled stretch of Albania’s Adriatic coast, in a protected nature reserve that hosts endangered loggerhead turtle nesting grounds and stable flamingo colonies on an adjacent uninhabited island. Scientists and local environmental activists say preliminary site work has already caused irreversible ecological harm, destroying critical habitats already at risk.

    Marine biologist Olsi Nika, who leads the prominent Albanian environmental NGO EcoAlbania, described the damage from early construction activities as “an absolute biodiversity massacre.” The site’s once-pristine coastal ecosystems, scientists confirm, have been permanently altered, eliminating nesting areas for loggerhead turtles, a species classified as threatened with extinction globally. The project’s location inside a protected natural and cultural heritage zone has amplified public outrage, with critics arguing the government bypassed environmental regulations and public oversight to advance a deal that benefits connected interests.

    Thursday’s clashes broke out as protesters attempted to push through heavy police security cordons to reach the parliament entrance. By the end of the day, Albania’s health ministry confirmed six police officers and 11 demonstrators suffered minor injuries and were treated at local Tirana hospitals. The demonstration was timed to coincide with a parliamentary vote on a 4 million euro ($4.6 million) public subsidy for a Kanye West concert held in Tirana earlier in July, a decision that further enraged a public already frustrated by the government’s handling of the resort project.

    In the chaotic parliamentary session, the subsidy was ultimately approved by 80 votes, all from the ruling Socialist Party, which holds a majority in the 140-seat unicameral legislature. Prime Minister Edi Rama had previously committed to the public funding, arguing it was required to prevent the high-profile concert from being canceled. For protesters, the approval of large public spending for a celebrity concert while pushing forward an environmentally destructive private resort project underscored what they call the government’s lopsided, non-transparent priorities.

    The project has become a major flashpoint for discontent in Albania, drawing thousands of nightly protesters through at least mid-July, according to on-the-ground reporting from Agence France-Presse. Clashes between demonstrators and police have occurred repeatedly in recent weeks outside parliament, with protesters previously throwing eggs at lawmakers as they entered the building. The development’s ties to the Trump family have also drawn international attention to the conflict, turning a local environmental dispute into a globally watched case of conservation versus high-profile development.

    No official crowd counts have been released by the Albanian government, but AFP journalists on site estimate thousands of people have joined the sustained daily protests through more than a month of action. Critics say the project highlights broader concerns about corruption and lack of accountability in Albania’s government, with environmental harm serving as the most visible trigger for widespread public anger that continues to roil the country’s political landscape.

  • US panel says to loosen restrictions on popular peptide despite safety concerns

    US panel says to loosen restrictions on popular peptide despite safety concerns

    A U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has sparked intense controversy after voting Thursday to recommend rolling back restrictions on the buzzy wellness industry peptide BPC-157, a decision that splits public health experts and opens new debate over untested compounded drugs. The recommendation came during a two-day gathering where the committee is evaluating whether seven understudied peptides should be added to the FDA’s approved bulk compounding list, a designation that lets specialized compounding pharmacies produce custom peptide formulations for wider public access.

    Peptides, short amino acid chains that form the building blocks of proteins, occur naturally in the human body. But synthetic versions like BPC-157 have exploded in popularity in mainstream wellness circles, promoted by social media influencers and A-list celebrities as a miracle solution for everything from injury recovery to overall bodily optimization, despite a near-total lack of rigorous human clinical trial data to back up those claims.

    Critics have already raised alarms over the composition of the advisory panel, noting that current U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—himself a public proponent of peptide use who says he has taken peptides to treat personal injuries—stacked the committee with appointees holding deep financial and professional ties to the growing peptide industry. The peptides now under review, which also include TB-500 and Semax, were previously restricted from compounding by the administration of former president Joe Biden, largely due to the absence of proven safety and effectiveness data from formal human trials.

    Even before the panel’s vote, unregulated access to these peptides remained widespread. Consumers can already purchase the substances online from chemical suppliers marketed as “for lab use only,” and the products are regularly promoted across social media platforms among wellness trend followers, biohackers, and high-profile public figures including Kennedy.

    The final vote on BPC-157 ended 8-6 in favor of adding the peptide to the approved compounding list, with one panel member abstaining. The outcome directly contradicts the formal warnings issued by FDA career scientists, who have repeatedly emphasized that BPC-157 lacks sufficient data to confirm it is safe or effective for human use.

    Panel members who opposed the recommendation stood by their objections during the open meeting. Elizabeth Rebello, a practicing pharmacist and anesthesiologist, told the committee she voted against the move “because of the lack of efficacy data” and ongoing “safety concerns.” Fellow no-voter Brian Lee added: “I think this endorsement can be potentially harmful, and I cannot in good conscience vote yes.”

    The majority of voting panelists justified their support for loosening restrictions by citing arguments of “medical freedom” and the “greater good” of expanding patient access to experimental treatments.

    The vote followed hours of testimony from stakeholders on both sides of the debate, including stark warnings from FDA career scientists against expanding access to untested BPC-157. Peter Lurie, president of the nonpartisan Center for Science in the Public Interest and a former FDA official, urged the panel to maintain existing restrictions, arguing that the recommendation “is inconsistent with the FDA’s own standards for pharmacy compounding, poses dangers to consumers, and removes incentives for developing new pharmaceutical products through the standard drug approval process.” Lurie went on to frame the unregulated peptide industry as a landscape rife with “pseudoscience and grift.”

    On the opposing side, telehealth firms including Hims & Hers argued in favor of easing restrictions, warning that keeping tight limits on compounded peptides will only push consumers to purchase unregulated products from unvetted gray market sellers, increasing rather than reducing safety risks.

    It is important to note that not all synthetic peptides carry the same level of risk: common treatments such as insulin and GLP-1 are well-studied, with well-documented risk and benefit profiles that have been confirmed through years of clinical research. By contrast, the injectable synthetic peptides promoted by wellness influencers and biohackers have never completed the large-scale, controlled clinical trials the FDA requires to formally confirm safety and effectiveness for consumer use.

    The advisory panel will continue its review of the six remaining peptides over the second day of the scheduled meeting. While the committee’s final recommendations are not legally binding for the FDA, the agency has a long-standing history of giving substantial deference to advisory panel guidance when setting regulatory policy.

  • Fields medal awarded to four young mathematicians

    Fields medal awarded to four young mathematicians

    One of the highest honors in global mathematics, the Fields Medal — often described as the Nobel Prize of the field — has been bestowed upon four early-career mathematicians during the opening ceremony of the International Congress of Mathematicians in Philadelphia this Thursday. Awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to recognize groundbreaking work by researchers under the age of 40, the prize includes a 15,000 Canadian dollar (approximately 11,000 USD) cash award and a gold medallion engraved with the likeness of ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. This year’s cohort of winners includes two Chinese citizens, Hong Wang and Yu Deng, one American scholar John Pardon, and Canadian mathematician Jacob Tsimerman.

    Hong Wang, 35, who currently holds academic positions at institutions in both France and New York University in the United States, made history as only the third woman to claim the Fields Medal since the award was first established in 1936. She joins the ranks of just two other female recipients: Maryam Mirzakhani of Iran, who won in 2014, and Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska, who received the honor in 2022. Wang’s award-winning work centers on solving a century-old mathematical puzzle first posed by Japanese mathematician Soichi Kakeya in 1917. The problem, which became known as the Kakeya conjecture, asks a deceptively simple question: when a pencil is rotated a full 360 degrees, what is the smallest total area that the moving pencil sweeps out? Working alongside colleague Josh Zahl, Wang cracked the long-standing problem by extending analysis beyond the traditional two-dimensional plane into three-dimensional space. Wang explained the enduring appeal of the conjecture, noting that its underlying dynamic appears naturally across a vast range of unrelated mathematical fields, making its resolution relevant far beyond pure theory.

    Yu Deng, the second Chinese recipient of this year’s award, currently teaches at the University of Chicago. His win underscores the rapidly growing global influence of Chinese mathematicians over the past several decades, a shift that has reshaped the international landscape of mathematical research. The United States, which holds the all-time record for the most Fields Medal winners, is represented this year by 37-year-old John Pardon, while 38-year-old Jacob Tsimerman completes the 2024 group of recipients. Tsimerman, a specialist in complex algebraic geometry and analytic number theory, traced his lifelong passion for mathematics back to a simple puzzle his grandfather shared with him as a child: a logic problem about toasting three slices of bread in a broken toaster that only toasts one side of each slot. When he worked out the elegant solution, he recalled thinking “That’s beautiful” — a moment that hooked him on mathematics for life.

    This year’s International Congress of Mathematicians unfolds at a pivotal turning point for the field, as rapid advances in artificial intelligence are triggering widespread disruption and reevaluation of how mathematical research is conducted. In recent months, cutting-edge large AI models have stunned many leading mathematicians by demonstrating the ability to generate high-level, complex mathematical proofs, a development that opens promising new avenues for research but also raises pressing concerns. Back in June, a group of leading mathematics experts published the Leiden Declaration, a public statement outlining both scientific and ethical risks tied to growing AI integration in the field. The declaration calls for the urgent creation of standardized regulatory frameworks and safety safeguards to mitigate potential harms. Among the core risks outlined, the document notes that current AI-powered automated proof techniques often generate plausible-looking but ultimately unreliable or even fully incorrect mathematical arguments that can be extremely hard for even experts to distinguish from valid proofs. The statement also contextualizes these concerns within broader global debates, pointing out that AI’s rapid expansion carries overlapping risks related to unethical military applications, mass surveillance, political destabilization, and environmental harm tied to outsized energy consumption for large model training and operation.