Global Pulse

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  • Hamas agrees to disarm under Trump plan

    Hamas agrees to disarm under Trump plan

    One of the most intractable obstacles to advancing the Gaza ceasefire that has been in place since October has been Hamas’s disarmament — a requirement that has stymied progress for months. On Friday, the Palestinian militant group announced a breakthrough agreement that would see it hand over all its weapons to a newly established Palestinian governing body, paired with a phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces from the Gaza Strip.

    The deal forms the framework to advance the long-stalled second phase of the ceasefire brokered by former U.S. President Donald Trump, who celebrated the development on Thursday. In his remarks, Trump called Hamas’s commitment to complete disarmament a transformative and major milestone for Middle East peace. On Friday, during a press gathering at Camp David, Trump maintained that Israel fully supported the arrangement, telling reporters “We do have an understanding with Israel. Israel’s very happy about it.”

    That claim, however, has been met with immediate pushback from Israeli officials, who have yet to release an official public statement on the announcement. An anonymous Israeli political source told Agence France-Presse that Israeli forces would not pull back from their current front lines under any circumstances unless Hamas carries out a full, verifiable disarmament — a condition the source emphasized remains non-negotiable. The disagreement deepened with opposition from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who denounced the deal as completely unacceptable, arguing it amounted to permitting Hamas to regroup and prepare for future deadly attacks against Israel. The source also added that the Gaza agreement was not raised at all during this week’s White House meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, contradicting Trump’s assertion of Israeli backing.

    For their part, Hamas leaders frame the agreement as a compromise made in service of the civilian population of Gaza, which has faced widespread humanitarian catastrophe after months of conflict. Ghazi Hamad, a senior member of Hamas’s negotiating delegation, clarified that Israel would have no role in overseeing the disarmament process. That responsibility, he said, falls exclusively to the National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the governing body created under Trump’s peace plan to manage daily civilian and security affairs in the territory.

    Hamas also noted that it expects international mediators and Trump’s specially convened Board of Peace to hold Israel accountable for complying with the deal’s terms, including its commitment to a phased military withdrawal. Israel has for months insisted that full disarmament of Hamas is an non-negotiable precondition for any military pullback, a position Israeli officials reaffirmed ahead of Friday’s announcement.

    Even with the October ceasefire formally in place, sporadic violence has continued to claim lives in Gaza. On Thursday alone, Israeli airstrikes killed at least four Palestinians, two of them children, according to local Gaza health officials. The new deal requires an immediate full halt to all military operations across the territory, and mandates the deployment of an international stabilization force to create a buffer between remaining Israeli troops and areas under NCAG control.

    The Board of Peace formally confirmed the agreement in a post on social media platform X, noting that Hamas had approved a detailed roadmap for advancing the next phases of the ceasefire process. “Our focus now turns to implementation,” the organization stated, adding that the NCAG will soon begin a phased transition to full governing authority over Gaza, with responsibility for internal security falling to the new body.

    Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, noted that the agreement came after months of grueling, high-stakes negotiations. “What happens next matters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real,” Mladenov wrote on X, adding that “Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning.”

    International reactions to the deal have been largely cautiously optimistic. European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas welcomed the breakthrough, but warned that “a lot needs to fall in place for this to work.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called the agreement a rare positive development amid ongoing regional tensions and spillover from the Gaza conflict, noting “The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the US president of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza.”

    Egypt, one of the key mediators alongside the U.S., Qatar and Turkey, will host an upcoming meeting of negotiating parties to work out implementation details, Egyptian state-aligned Al-Qahera News reported Friday. An anonymous diplomatic source briefed on the roadmap described it as “a balanced and pragmatic path forward, with all weapons decommissioned and a phased transition of responsibilities” to the new governing authorities. The source emphasized that there would be “no exceptions for certain weapons or certain people,” laying out clear terms for the NCAG to take control of and secure all of Hamas’s heavy weaponry, weapons production facilities, storage depots and cross-border attack tunnels, with a new independent compliance verification mechanism put in place to monitor progress.

  • Strengthening El Nino ‘adding fuel to a planet already on fire’: UN chief

    Strengthening El Nino ‘adding fuel to a planet already on fire’: UN chief

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres issued a stark new warning Friday, saying a rapidly strengthening El Niño weather event, supercharged by human-caused climate change, is “adding fuel to a planet already on fire” and pushing the global climate system into unprecedented, dangerous uncharted territory.

    Two months prior, Guterres had cautioned the world that El Niño was approaching. Now, he told the UN body, the phenomenon has fully arrived—and is rapidly cranking up global temperatures beyond what communities have ever prepared for.

    El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern marked by elevated sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, triggers cascading shifts in global wind patterns, atmospheric pressure, and rainfall distributions that push overall global average temperatures higher. But decades of human greenhouse gas emissions have amplified these impacts dramatically: a warmer ocean and atmosphere already hold far more excess energy and moisture, creating ideal conditions for more frequent and more intense extreme weather events ranging from deadly heatwaves to catastrophic heavy rainfall.

    “This summer has already put us through a trial by fire: record-shattering heat domes trapping communities in lethal temperatures, apocalyptic wildfires raging across Spain, France and countless other regions, and thousands of lives lost to scorching conditions,” Guterres said. “But the latest science tells us this is only the opening act—worse is still to come.”

    Data from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirms the severity of the current event: Pacific sea surface temperatures driving this El Niño have never hit this level of warmth so early in the event’s cycle, with current average temperatures sitting 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above long-term normal levels. The WMO’s seasonal forecast projects that nearly every landmass on Earth will see above-average temperatures through the end of October.

    “When you combine record-warm Pacific waters with a planet already heated by fossil fuel emissions, we face a very real risk that this event will shatter every existing global temperature record and bring even more devastating impacts to communities across every continent,” Guterres warned. “We are in uncharted territory.”

    The risks stretch far beyond extreme heat alone. Guterres noted that India’s critical monsoon season has seen well below average rainfall so far, while prolonged hotter, drier conditions are forecast across a swathe of regions including Central America, the Caribbean, parts of South America, South Asia, the Southwest Pacific, Europe and Africa. Other regions face heightened risk of catastrophic flooding driven by the extra moisture in a warmed atmosphere.

    Guterres concluded that the evidence is unambiguous: “the climate crisis is in overdrive.” To address the immediate threat and root causes, he laid out four urgent priorities for global action.

    First, governments must implement national and city-wide heat action plans paired with expanded early warning systems, and guarantee widespread access to sustainable cooling solutions to protect vulnerable populations from lethal heat.

    Second, nations must update labor regulations to enforce heat safety standards, ensuring that vulnerable outdoor and frontline workers—including those in the global garment industry, one of the most at-risk sectors—do not have to risk their lives to earn a living.

    Third, extreme heat resilience must be integrated into the core design of critical public infrastructure, including cities, residential homes, schools, and hospitals, with dedicated funding and planning allocated to heat adaptation.

    Fourth and most fundamentally, Guterres emphasized, the world must end its reliance on the fossil fuels that are driving planetary warming. Rather than treating each climate disaster as an isolated tragedy to be responded to after the fact, global leaders must address the root cause of the amplified El Niño and extreme weather crisis: ongoing fossil fuel extraction and use.

  • Trump and far-right seize on Spanish migration crisis

    Trump and far-right seize on Spanish migration crisis

    A sudden surge of migrant arrivals into the Spanish North African territory of Ceuta has become a flashpoint for political opportunism, with former and current U.S. President Donald Trump leading a coordinated far-right push on both sides of the Atlantic to frame the crisis as a cautionary tale for Western nations facing uncontrolled immigration.

    Speaking at a cabinet meeting held at the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland on Friday, Trump seized on dramatic viral footage of migrants overwhelming border barriers to enter the small coastal enclave to warn American voters. “I saw what happened in Spain yesterday, a total catastrophe,” Trump stated. “It looks like an out-and-out invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people. That same thing is going to happen here if Republicans don’t win this November — it will be even worse, far bigger than what we’re seeing in Spain.”

    The timing of the crisis comes as polling shows Trump’s approval ratings hovering in the low 30 percent range, with opposition Democrats widely expected to flip at least one chamber of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections. For Trump’s Republican Party, the Ceuta crisis offers a rare chance to refocus national attention on immigration, one of the GOP’s most reliable and mobilizing political issues for its base.

    Compelling footage of the migrant surge has aired repeatedly on Fox News, the main conservative cable network aligned with Trump, and spread rapidly across right-wing social media platforms allied with the former president. The narrative has been picked up and amplified by far-right leaders across Europe, mirroring the messaging coming from Washington.

    Alice Weidel, co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party — which has openly received backing from senior Trump administration officials — took to X to amplify the crisis, claiming that “Ceuta was left in ruins overnight” by the mass influx of migrants from neighboring Morocco. She argued that most of the new arrivals would ultimately head to Germany, writing that “Germany must prepare itself: borders must be secured and rejections of asylum claims rigorously enforced.”

    Other European right-wing leaders have gone even further in their criticism of Spain. Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who leads a right-wing nationalist government, joined Finland’s populist right ruling coalition in calling for Spain to be removed from the European Union’s visa-free Schengen Area in response to the crisis. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, a billionaire open supporter of Trump, blamed the crisis entirely on the Spanish government’s policy of granting legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants already residing in the country. “They are replacing Spaniards with migrants,” Babis claimed.

    Hardline anti-immigration rhetoric around the Ceuta crisis echoes the playbook that delivered Trump his 2024 election victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, when widespread voter anxiety over unregulated crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border and Trump’s incendiary warnings — including false claims that migrants were coming to murder U.S. citizens and even harm household pets — mobilized his base to victory.

    The entire Trump administration has launched a coordinated messaging barrage around the Spanish crisis. The U.S. State Department issued an official statement placing sole blame on Spain’s left-wing government, accusing Madrid of “deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe.” Without offering specific details, the statement added that Washington is “considering actions to defend Americans at home and abroad from this threat and stand ready to assist other European allies considering similar options.”

    Vice President JD Vance shared the viral Ceuta footage on his own X account, framing the crisis as evidence of what he called “radical left-wing globalist policies that have enabled the Invasion of the West.” “These images out of Spain are an unfortunate reminder of the consequences of mass migration,” Vance wrote.

    Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and the chief architect of Trump’s first-term anti-immigration crackdown, also posted video of the crisis, issuing a stark warning that aligned with Trump’s original incendiary framing. “Democrats will see your home trampled and stolen by invaders and they will rejoice,” Miller wrote.

  • New blazes in Greece as strong winds hamper firefighting

    New blazes in Greece as strong winds hamper firefighting

    Greece faced another day of escalating wildfire disaster on Friday, as gusty winds reaching 55 miles per hour sparked new blazes across the country, exhausting firefighting teams and forcing emergency evacuation orders for a western Athens suburb. The outbreak marked the fourth consecutive day of widespread fire activity, which has already torn through popular tourist regions, left local residents displaced, and claimed the lives of three firefighters.

    Civil Protection authorities issued an emergency mobile alert ordering partial evacuation of Haidari, a suburban community located roughly seven miles west of central Athens, after a wildfire ignited on a nearby mountain. Fire department officials confirmed they have mobilized a massive response force for the blaze, including 100+ ground firefighters, five helicopters, and four water-bombing aircraft.

    This new fire near the Greek capital is part of a broader national emergency that has hit regions across the country this week, most notably the major tourist island of Crete. There, the blazes have already destroyed thousands of acres of land and left dozens of local business owners ruined. Thrasyvoulos Paterakis, a 69-year-old cafe owner in the Crete resort town of Agia Galini, told reporters his entire business – which supported both his own family and that of his son – was completely destroyed by the flames. “We’re now out on the street,” he said.

    Greek Civil Protection officials classified most of the country’s regions, including the Athens metro area, Crete, multiple Aegean islands, and parts of the Peloponnese, as under “very high” wildfire risk on Friday, the second-highest risk tier. The powerful gusty winds have not only accelerated fire spread but also disrupted ferry travel to many top tourist destinations, complicating both travel and emergency logistics.

    Theodore Giannaros, a senior researcher at the National Observatory of Athens, explained that extreme wind is making the blazes far harder to contain. “The gusts are literally carrying the fire and spreading it in all directions,” he told public broadcaster ERT. “The strong winds are lifting embers that can spark new outbreaks, sometimes far from the main fire front.”

    Two separate new blazes also broke out Friday in Viotia, a coastal region 53 miles northwest of Athens. When seasonal residents refused to comply with an initial evacuation order, coastguard and fire department crews deployed vessels to extract roughly 200 people from the coastal village of Agios Vasileios by sea, moving them to safety at a nearby beach, according to Greece’s national news agency ANA.

    In a piece of good news, firefighters managed to stop an advancing blaze in the eastern Peloponnese before it reached Mycenae, the iconic UNESCO-recognized Bronze Age archaeological site, protecting the historic landmark from damage.

    Satellite data from the European Union’s Copernicus climate monitoring program shows that between Wednesday and Thursday alone, approximately 4,500 hectares (11,120 acres) of land was burned south of the popular Cretan tourist town of Rethymno. Officials added that the combination of strong winds and Crete’s rugged, mountainous terrain continues to slow and hamper firefighting efforts across the island.

    Authorities have already issued a maximum-level fire risk alert for Saturday, covering the greater Athens area, parts of Crete and the Peloponnese, central Greece, and the country’s northeastern border region with Turkey.

    Greece’s unique geography, made up of hundreds of scattered islands, adds an extra layer of complexity to rapid emergency response, but additional firefighting resources have already been dispatched to hard-hit Crete to support frontline crews. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis warned Thursday that the country is bracing for what lies ahead. After escaping the worst of the heat and fire activity that hit France and Spain earlier this summer, Mitsotakis said Greece is now headed for “difficult days.”

    Like the rest of the Mediterranean basin, Greece is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, which has increased the frequency and severity of heat waves, drought, and summer wildfire activity across the region.

  • A rumour, a rush: chaos at Morocco border with Spain’s Ceuta

    A rumour, a rush: chaos at Morocco border with Spain’s Ceuta

    A false social rumor of an open border between Morocco and Spain has triggered a deadly mass migration rush into the North African Spanish enclave of Ceuta, leaving at least 18 to 34 people dead and igniting a diplomatic and political crisis across Europe. The chaos unfolded after thousands of hopeful migrants, desperate for better economic opportunities in Europe, flocked to the border crossing near the Moroccan town of Fnideq, spurred by unconfirmed reports that frontier controls had been temporarily lifted.

    Among those who joined the rush was Fatima Zahra, a migrant working in Tangier who told Agence France-Presse she left her job under poor working conditions to try her luck in Europe. “I woke up in the morning and heard that Ceuta had opened,” Zahra explained. “At that point, I told the people with me let’s go there for work… let’s try our luck too.” Like many others, Zahra was ultimately turned away before entering the enclave.

    Ceuta, a 18.5-square-kilometer Spanish autonomous territory located on North Africa’s northern coast, and the nearby similar enclave Melilla, host the only land borders between the European Union and the African continent. By the end of the incident, Ceuta’s regional president confirmed that roughly 60,000 migrants had successfully crossed into the tiny territory, which has a total native population of just 80,000 residents.

    AFP visual coverage captured dramatic scenes of chaos: migrants swimming around Ceuta’s fortified frontier fence, clambering over razor-sharp barbed wire to reach European soil, while Moroccan riot police deployed tear gas and water cannons to disperse the surging crowds after border controls collapsed. By the following Friday, the departure point near Fnideq was left in ruin: more than a dozen burned-out cars lined the square, rocks littered the pavement, and officers continued pushing turned-back migrants away from the border.

    Many migrants traveled hundreds of kilometers across Morocco after hearing the rumor. Abdelhakim, one migrant who was turned back, shared that he walked 14 kilometers through mountain terrain to reach the border, fully believing the crossing was open. “Once we got here, we were told to cross by sea. I found myself completely submerged and saw two men die right before my eyes,” he recalled. “That’s when I backed away and remembered that I have two children of my own, and that I couldn’t risk my life.”

    Even amid the danger, many migrants viewed the risk of reaching Europe as worth taking, especially after word spread that some early attempts had succeeded. Karim, another turned-back aspirant, noted that reports of successful crossings pushed more people to join the rush. “Suddenly they heard that the borders were open and that some young people had crossed, so everyone ended up here,” he said.

    Videos and photos of the chaos have already sparked a major political crisis for Spain’s left-wing national government. Madrid has deployed military troops to Ceuta to reinforce border security, while France has moved to implement stricter checks along its own border with Spain. Italy has further called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen Area, Europe’s open-border free travel zone.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez scheduled an official visit to Ceuta on Friday, marking the largest mass influx into the autonomous city since a similar crisis in May 2021. The images of jubilant new arrivals, many of whom were minors, wearing nothing but swimsuits and flip-flops, cheering and shouting “Bye bye Morocco, hello Spain” have circulated widely across social media, threatening to severely damage diplomatic relations between Madrid and Rabat. Footage from local Spanish broadcaster El Faro even showed young migrants, including a 14-year-old girl, flashing victory signs after successfully crossing into the territory.

    As dawn broke on the day after the rush, Moroccan security forces ramped up their response, with dozens of officers pushing back crowds attempting to exit Morocco. Multiple elderly women were escorted away from the clash sites, while migrants responded to police action by throwing stones and firing projectiles from slingshots, according to on-the-ground reporting from an AFP journalist. Dozens of vehicles, including the informal taxis many migrants used to travel to the border, were destroyed by fire during the unrest.

  • Thousands cross into Spain’s north Africa enclave in new migrant crisis

    Thousands cross into Spain’s north Africa enclave in new migrant crisis

    In an unprecedented sudden influx of migrants that has triggered a new international crisis, roughly 40,000 people have crossed from Morocco into Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta over recent days, with thousands making the risky journey overnight alone. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez traveled to the border territory on Friday to coordinate the government’s response to what is already one of the most severe border migration crises the country has faced in modern history.

    Ceuta, a tiny 18.5-square-kilometer Spanish territory, and its neighboring exclave Melilla are the only two European territories that share a land border with the African continent. The vast majority of recent arrivals have bypassed the short border barrier by swimming across the adjacent Mediterranean Sea, a dangerous crossing that has already claimed 18 lives, according to a senior Spanish police source who spoke on condition of anonymity. The source confirmed that arrivals continued at a steady pace through the night and were still ongoing early Friday morning.

    AFP correspondents on the ground witnessed men, women and children discarding the makeshift flotation devices and clothing they used for the crossing after emerging onto Ceuta’s shores. As of Friday, hundreds of migrants, most of them young men, remained gathered near the Tarajal border crossing and in residential areas of the enclave, while some had already chosen to return to Morocco, citing overwhelming overcrowding in the territory. Spanish police and civil guard officers have largely refrained from blocking arrivals, instead directing new migrants toward the local reception center.

    The root cause of the sudden surge in migration remains unclear as of Friday, though the incident echoes a similar 2021 crisis when more than 10,000 migrants crossed into Ceuta over two days after Morocco loosened border controls during a diplomatic dispute with Spain. That 2021 rift erupted after Madrid allowed the leader of the Polisario Front, the Sahrawi independence movement fighting Morocco over control of Western Sahara, to receive medical treatment on Spanish soil. The dispute was resolved in 2022 when Spain abandoned its decades-long policy of neutrality on the Western Sahara issue and backed Morocco’s autonomy plan for the region, a move that in turn triggered a major diplomatic rift between Madrid and Algeria, Polisario’s primary backer. Relations between Spain and Algeria have only recently begun to thaw, with Sanchez making the first visit by a Spanish prime minister to the North African country in four years last July.

    Morocco has not yet released an official public statement on the 2024 surge, but an anonymous Moroccan government source confirmed to AFP that senior officials from the two countries have already held discussions about the crisis.

    The sudden influx has already caused significant diplomatic fallout across Europe and beyond. Italy triggered a formal rebuke from Spain Thursday after calling for Madrid to be suspended from the Schengen Area, Europe’s passport-free open border zone. Spanish officials accused Rome of exploiting the humanitarian crisis for domestic political gain, and summoned the Italian ambassador to Madrid to protest the statement. Finland publicly backed Italy’s call on Friday, while French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez announced Thursday night that he had ordered immediate tightening of border checks between France and Spain in response to the crisis. Even in the United States, two senior advisors to former President Donald Trump seized on footage of the Ceuta arrivals to reiterate their hardline anti-immigration policy positions.

    In response to the crisis, the Spanish government has deployed additional military personnel, police officers, specialized divers, surveillance drones and patrol boats to Ceuta to reinforce border security and manage the influx of arrivals. Many new arrivals have expressed optimism about their decision to leave Morocco, with crowds of migrants walking through Ceuta’s streets Thursday shouting “Bye bye Morocco, hello Spain” and thanking Spanish police for their willingness to allow entry.

  • Aussie drivers brace for petrol price hike as fuel excise cut ends Sunday

    Aussie drivers brace for petrol price hike as fuel excise cut ends Sunday

    Australian motorists bracing for sudden steep increases at the petrol pump have been reassured that the end of the temporary 16 cents per litre fuel excise cut will not push up prices overnight. The six-month cost-of-living relief measure is set to officially expire at midnight Sunday, but Energy Minister Chris Bowen says consumers will not feel the full impact for around a week as existing fuel stock already held at service stations was purchased at the lower excise rate.

    The fuel excise cut was first introduced in April as an emergency response to global oil price volatility sparked by the outbreak of conflict between the United States and Iran, which disrupted global supply chains and forced intermittent closures of the Strait of Hormuz – a critical chokepoint for global oil transportation. When first launched, the cut reduced excise payments by 32 cents per litre, bringing the total tax per litre down from 52.6 cents to 20.6 cents. The discount was tapered to 16 cents per litre in July as part of the planned phase-out of the policy.

    Bowen explained that just as the initial excise cut took time to flow through to lower retail prices for consumers, the reversal of the cut will also take time to work through the supply chain. “The excise has already been paid on the fuel stored underground at service stations, and replenishment cycles vary across different operators,” Bowen told reporters on Saturday. “Just as we saw when the cut came into effect, the same gradual adjustment will happen on the way back up.”

    To protect consumers from unfair pricing practices as the excise returns to its original level, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has been granted enhanced monitoring powers to crack down on price gouging. Bowen warned that any retailer found engaging in illegal pricing practices will face substantial penalties, noting that the watchdog is already actively monitoring market trends across the country. “The ACCC is on the beat, they have the powers to act, and they will take action against any operators that break the rules,” he said.

    In addition to the end of the passenger vehicle fuel excise cut, the heavy vehicle road user charge will also return to its standard rate of 32.4 cents per litre from Monday. The charge for liquid fuels such as diesel had been cut to 16.4 cents per litre for the duration of the relief program.

    Treasurer Jim Chalmers has repeatedly emphasized that the excise cut was always intended to be a temporary emergency measure, not a permanent policy change. The government extended the cut at half its original value after the initial six-month period to smooth the transition for consumers, aligning with the original plan to phase out the relief gradually.

    “It was never the government’s intention for this relief to be permanent,” Chalmers said. “We extended it at half the rate because we always planned to taper it off gradually to avoid sudden shock to household budgets.”

    When the conflict first erupted in late February, global oil prices spiked dramatically, pushing Australia’s fuel price index up 32.8% between February and March – from 94.35 to 125.29. The Reserve Bank of Australia identified rising fuel costs as a key driver of national headline inflation, estimating that the full excise cut would reduce overall inflation by 0.5 percentage points. The sharp price rise at the start of the year also pushed down consumer fuel consumption, which fell 7% in April and 10% in May compared to the previous year, as many Australian households cut back on driving to manage costs.

    As of 26 July, the average national retail price of petrol sits at 182.3 cents per litre. Industry analysts expect this average will rise gradually over the coming week as the excise change flows through the supply chain, with the full 16 cent per litre increase hitting consumers by the end of next week for most regions.

  • France, Spain assess scorched terrain as new wildfires threaten other regions

    France, Spain assess scorched terrain as new wildfires threaten other regions

    As a summer of unprecedented wildfire activity sweeps across Southern Europe, firefighting teams from multiple nations are working around the clock to contain out-of-control blazes that have scorhed hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, displaced hundreds of thousands of residents, and claimed multiple lives. On Friday, Greek crews remained on high alert for new fire ignitions amid dangerous conditions, while France and Spain braced for potential new flare-ups even as progress was made containing their most destructive infernos.

    Climate scientists have long warned that rising global temperatures driven by climate change create the perfect dry conditions for more intense, fast-spreading wildfires, and this season’s extreme blazes across the continent have only underscored this growing systemic risk. Parched vegetation across the Mediterranean has turned vast swathes of land into tinder, allowing small ignitions to explode into massive infernos that are far harder for crews to contain.

    In Greece, the largest blaze burning on the popular tourist island of Crete has already destroyed roughly 4,500 hectares of land since Wednesday. While local authorities noted modest improvements in conditions near the town of Rethymno on Friday, a fire department spokesperson confirmed to AFP that the fire has not yet been fully contained, with hundreds of active hotspots still posing a major risk of flare-ups. Smaller blazes are also burning across the Aegean Sea on the islands of Paros, Kalymnos, and Andros, though officials report those situations are under better control. Nearly all of Greece remained on high alert Friday, with the Athens metropolitan area and large parts of the Peloponnese peninsula ranked at “very high” wildfire risk — the second-highest level on the country’s five-tier warning scale.

    France, one of the countries worst hit by this season’s wildfires, received much-needed good news this week. Near the southwestern city of Bordeaux, a massive inferno that blackened 42,000 hectares of land has finally been stabilized after days of spread, thanks to favorable overnight weather conditions. With the fire fully contained within its perimeter, more than half of the 224,000 evacuated residents have been allowed to return to their homes across 12 affected municipalities. Local officials plan to launch coordinated operations to clear underbrush and treat fire perimeters in coastal dune areas to eliminate remaining hotspots. Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas noted that Thursday brought an optimistic shift, with residents beginning to resume normal daily life. However, the fire has already left a devastating mark: at least 200 homes have been destroyed, and two firefighters have died battling the blazes. Ukraine has stepped in to support French response efforts, deploying a team of 70 specialized rescuers and 15 fire vehicles to assist with containment and mop-up operations.

    To the east, Portugal is also grappling with an out-of-control blaze that has been burning in the northern part of the country since Tuesday. Regional civil protection commander Albano Teixeira described Friday’s overnight operations as “intense”, with nearly 800 firefighters deployed to contain the Valpacos fire. The blaze has so far injured at least five people lightly and has consumed more than 6,000 hectares of land.

    Turkey has also seen a surge in new ignitions over the past 48 hours, with hundreds of firefighters battling wind-driven blazes near popular Mediterranean and Aegean tourist regions. In the western province of Balikesir, five people have been injured fighting blazes across three towns. Authorities have evacuated three villages near the coastal town of Ayvalik, located opposite the Greek island of Lesbos, and relocated 720 head of cattle to safer ground. Turkish Agriculture Ministry data shows that at least 169 new wildfires broke out across the country between Wednesday and Friday, though 163 of those have already been brought under control.

    In Spain, officials are cautiously easing emergency measures but remain on high alert amid an ongoing second heatwave that threatens to reignite contained blazes. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez lifted the state of emergency for a major wildfire west of Madrid on Thursday, after officials confirmed all active fire fronts had been extinguished. More than 60,000 residents were evacuated at the height of that blaze, and most have now been allowed to return to their homes. However, the country is also grappling with a historic blaze in the neighboring Avila region, which has burned 50,000 hectares of land since it ignited last week — making it the largest wildfire recorded in Spain since national record-keeping began in 1961. Officials warned that the new heatwave moving across the country could reignite smoldering hotspots in the Madrid region, forcing residents to remain prepared for new evacuation orders.

  • ASX 200 gains for fourth month as miners like BHP ride global AI wave

    ASX 200 gains for fourth month as miners like BHP ride global AI wave

    The Australian equity market wrapped up a mixed trading session to notch its fourth straight month of gains in July, driven largely by a surge in materials stocks fueled by skyrocketing investor demand for copper—an critical raw material for the global rollout of artificial intelligence infrastructure. While the benchmark ASX 200 only posted a modest 0.1% gain, climbing 9.10 points to close at 8976.80, the performance marked a milestone for the local index that aligns with July’s historic reputation as one of the strongest calendar months for Australian equities. The broader All Ordinaries followed a similar trajectory, rising 14.30 points (0.16%) to settle at 9137.00, and the Australian dollar edged up to 70.32 U.S. cents by market close.

    Of the 11 major sectors tracked on the ASX, only five finished the trading day in positive territory. The standout growth came from the materials sector, which has increasingly acted as a domestic proxy for the global AI trade. Mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto led the rally, with BHP shares climbing 1.96% to $60.31 and Rio Tinto jumping 1.28% to $170.57, as copper prices climbed on growing investor recognition of copper’s non-substitutable role in manufacturing AI data center hardware, power infrastructure, and semiconductor equipment.

    Joseph Marassa, a strategist at Global X ETFs, explained that the local materials rally came on the heels of an overnight rally on the U.S. Nasdaq and a broad resurgence in investor optimism around AI development. “Materials continue to act as a local proxy for the AI trade, with investors seeking copper exposure – a key input to the AI build out – on the back of the overnight Nasdaq rally and renewed AI sentiment,” Marassa noted. Global tech markets echoed this optimism overnight: South Korea’s KOSPI index surged 17.91% led by major chip manufacturers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics, while the U.S. Nasdaq 100 gained 3.36% to cap off a strong overnight trading session.

    The strong gains in materials were largely offset by downturns in defensive sectors, however. Healthcare stocks led the declines, with vaccine and biotech giant CSL dropping 3.81% to $123.06, Sigma Healthcare sliding 0.68% to $2.94, and medical device maker ResMed falling 1.52% to $29.79. Consumer staples also faced broad pressure, with major domestic supermarket chains both closing in the red: Woolworths dropped 1.73% to $39.77, while Coles slipped 0.70% to $24.09. Dairy producer A2 Milk also underperformed, dragging down 2.55% to $6.89.

    Despite the muted daily gain, market analysts highlighted that the ASX 200’s July performance delivered a solid 2.37% monthly return, not far off the 2.73% average July gain recorded over the past 10 years, reinforcing the month’s long-held reputation as the strongest for Australian equities. IG senior Market Analyst Tony Sycamore noted that the four-month winning streak has been supported by a combination of domestic macroeconomic factors and global sentiment shifts. “The ASX200’s gains this week have been supported by the cooler Australian inflation report for June and a more measured tone from the RBA Governor on Tuesday, which reinforced expectations the cash rate will remain at 4.35 per cent next month,” Sycamore explained, adding that “Solid trading updates from two of the major miners added further support.”

    In individual company news, several firms posted strong gains on positive corporate updates. Medical technology firm 4D Medical saw its shares jump 13.08% to $3.63 after releasing its quarterly activity report, which showed operating revenue hit $7.2 million, a 23% year-on-year increase. Energy giant Origin Energy added 0.94% to $10.76 after reporting that its June quarter revenue rose 6% from the prior quarter to $1.96 billion. The biggest single-day gain went to Energy One, whose shares rocketed 31.80% to $14.30 after the company revealed it had received an unsolicited, indicative, conditional acquisition proposal from Norwegian energy technology firm Volue AS.

  • Gina Rinehart launches legal action against ABC over ‘sausage roll’ segment

    Gina Rinehart launches legal action against ABC over ‘sausage roll’ segment

    One of Australia’s most high-profile and wealthy figures has initiated formal legal proceedings against the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the country’s national public broadcaster, after a prime-time program aired a four-minute clip containing explicit violent rhetoric targeting her. Gina Rinehart, Australia’s richest individual and executive chairman of mining giant Hancock Prospecting Pty Ltd, confirmed the legal assault this week over the controversial segment that aired as part of ABC’s *Race Around The World* competition series three weeks prior.

    The segment, created by competition contestant Kate McGuinness, closed with a disturbing voiceover that called for graphic physical violence against Rinehart: “When the revolution comes, will you hide under the bed or will you know exactly how to shove a stick right up Gina Rinehart’s butthole, stirring it round, mixing her guts up nice and smooth, to make one big sausage roll to make something out of nothing.”

    A week before launching full legal action, Hancock Prospecting submitted a formal request to the ABC board, demanding the segment be immediately removed from all ABC digital and broadcast platforms, that the broadcaster issue a public apology for the harmful content, and that an internal inquiry be launched to examine how the violent segment cleared editorial review to air. In a formal statement announcing the legal action, Hancock Prospecting slammed the ABC’s inaction in the seven days following the initial request.

    “One week later, the ABC’s board and senior management have provided no substantive public response, nor any substantive response to Hancock or Mrs Rinehart, and have taken no steps to remove the material from ABC platforms, despite widespread public condemnation and the serious risks its publication and continued publication pose to Mrs Rinehart,” the statement read. The company has now named the ABC’s top leadership—chair Kim Williams AM, deputy chair Lisa Caffery, and managing director Hugh Marks—in the formal legal notice, outlining detailed allegations of serious breaches of multiple Australian criminal and civil laws stemming from the original broadcast and the ABC’s decision to keep the content online.

    Initially, the ABC defended the segment as “editorially justifiable” consistent with the network’s editorial independence guidelines. But facing growing public and political pressure, the broadcaster has since referred the entire matter to its internal independent Ombudsman, an oversight body that reports directly to the ABC Board.

    On Thursday afternoon, McGuinness issued a public apology through the ABC, insisting she never intended to incite violence against Rinehart, and framing the graphic language as over-the-top satirical farce. “The sense of humour featured in each of my films on the Race Around The World program is farcical,” McGuinness said. “In no way was it my intention to promote violence. My writing is cartoonish and always satirical. Unfortunately, jokes do not land with everyone. Its purpose was never to be taken literally. I apologise to anyone I’ve offended.” The ABC confirmed it supported McGuinness’ apology.

    Federal Communications Minister Anika Wells became the highest-ranking government official to weigh in on the controversy Wednesday, labeling the segment “unacceptable.” “Like any Australian, there’s stuff I see on TV that I don’t agree with,” she said. “As the Minister for Communications, I respect the editorial independence of the ABC, but I understand they have now referred it to the Ombudsman. I think that was the right thing to do.”

    The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), the country’s media regulatory board, announced it would hold off on any independent action pending the outcome of the ABC Ombudsman’s investigation, in line with its co-regulatory obligations. The legal process is now unfolding as questions mount over editorial standards at the public broadcaster and the line between free political satire and incitement to violence against private individuals.