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Tag: Oceania

  • ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN

    ‘Shocked’ by the loss: Scientists sound the alarm on New Zealand’s melting glaciers | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Every year scientists in New Zealand fly over some of the country’s most iconic glaciers – ancient ice “rivers” that descend from the Southern Alps, a spine of mountains that extend along the South Island. And almost every year, they find them shrinking.

    This year was no different.

    At the end of March, the team of scientists spent eight hours flying over the peaks, taking thousands of photographs of glaciers for the annual snowline survey. Andrew Mackintosh, a professor at Monash University in Australia who was on the flight, said in a statement that he was “shocked” by what they saw.

    Some of the smaller elevation glaciers had largely disappeared, he said, while the famous Franz Josef and Fox glaciers showed marked signs of retreat.

    “The observations this year reinforce the view that we are continuing to see ice loss across the Southern Alps,” Andrew Lorrey, principal scientist at the research body National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and coordinator of the survey, told CNN.

    Glaciers are huge masses of ice that build up in and around mountains. They grow in cold, snowy winters and retreat when temperatures warm. Glaciers are fresh water sources for nearly 2 billion people globally, but their rapid melting poses a huge risk: not only is it increasing the risk for deadly flash flooding, the melting ice is driving sea level rise.

    Two years of severe, record-breaking heat have taken a toll on the glaciers – 2022 was New Zealand’s hottest year ever, beating a record that was set just a year earlier. But the trend of declining ice is long term.

    It’s difficult to witness, said Lorrey, who has been on these aerial surveys since 2009. “I’m seeing this beautiful part of our natural environment slipping through our fingers. And if you’ve experienced a glacier firsthand, they are absolutely breathtaking and mind-blowing and life-altering.”

    The snowline survey, organized by NIWA, has happened almost every year for nearly five decades and aims to capture a snapshot of a set of more than 50 glaciers – ranging in size and elevation – as close as possible to the end of snow and ice melt season.

    The scientists are looking specifically at the snow that coats them. By understanding where the snowline is “you capture something about the health of our glaciers,” Lorrey said.

    The snow, which provides a nourishing and protective layer for the glaciers, starts in the autumn and continues until spring.

    Lorrey has a financial analogy for the process: The snow is like a savings deposit for the glacier, a buffer against the warmer period ahead. When the melt season starts in the spring, it has to go through this “savings account” of new snow before it reaches the body of the glacier.

    In years when the snowline is lower on the mountain, the glacier can bulk up and is able to advance further down the slope – it has a healthy balance. But when the snowline is higher up, more of the glacier is exposed to melting – sending it into the red – and it will shrink.

    “Right now, we see rapid changes happening in the mountains, with indications that the snowline rise is accelerating along with ice loss,” Lorrey said.

    The results from this year’s flight will be fed into a report on longer term variability in the glaciers which will come out later in the year.

    Principal scientist Andrew Lorrey takes photos of Tasman Glacier during the flight.

    The climate crisis is having a huge impact. “It’s mostly temperature changes that drive what glaciers in New Zealand are doing,” Lauren Vargo, a glaciologist at the Victoria University of Wellington, who was part of the survey, told CNN.

    The extreme melting in 2018, one of the worst years on record for New Zealand’s glaciers, was made up to 10 times more likely by climate change, according to a 2020 study co-authored by Vargo and Lorrey.

    As a scientist, at first the dramatic change in the glaciers “was exciting” in some ways, said Vargo, who has been studying them since 2016. But the persistence of this trend is tough. “It also feels sad and scary when you think about what’s driving it,” she said.

    “As the current warming trend continues, we will keep losing more glaciers,” said Lorrey. And this is a global trend. Up to half the world’s glaciers could disappear by the end of the century, even if ambitious climate targets are met, according to research published in January.

    Brewster Glacier has seen a marked retreat over the last two decades.

    In addition to the impacts of climate change, natural climate variations have also played a role. The unusually long run of La Niña years, which have just ended, brought warmer-than-average sea and air temperatures, helping to drive glacier melting.

    Its counterpart, El Niño, which often brings cooler conditions to this part of New Zealand, is forecast for later in the year and may provide a temporary reprieve.

    “I always look forward to an El Niño and seeing a snow line that is where it normally should be,” Lorrey said. But, he cautioned, “it’s not going to save the bacon of the glaciers.” These years “occur too few and far between to counteract the ongoing warming trend that we’ve been experiencing.”

    Carrington Glacier

    The loss of ice is is keenly felt, Vargo said. “People in New Zealand have this connection to the glaciers.”

    Where once it was possible to park in the car park of a national park and walk a short distance to touch a glacier, now that’s much less common – people often need to go further into the mountain, even fly there on small planes.

    “It’s an experience that will be out of reach for many,” Lorrey said. “A loss of our glaciers will have a significant impact on our relationship with and experiences in the environment.”

    These “water towers,” as Lorrey calls them, also have an important role in supplying high Alpine streams, especially during years of drought.

    The shifts that are happening are a reminder that our mountains – and other places around the world – are changing quickly, he said. Glaciers are a “a highly visual element of environmental change that tells us there are other things that we are not seeing.”

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  • Man sentenced for abducting girl from family’s tent at remote Australian campsite | CNN

    Man sentenced for abducting girl from family’s tent at remote Australian campsite | CNN

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    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    A man who admitted abducting a four-year-old girl from a remote campsite in Western Australia and holding her for 18 days during a massive police search has been sentenced to 13 years and 6 months in prison.

    Terence Kelly, 37, pleaded guilty to abducting Cleo Smith from the tent she was sharing with her family in the early hours of October 16, 2021, and was sentenced Wednesday in Perth’s District Court.

    Cleo’s disappearance triggered a police hunt that covered several square kilometers around the site and was later extended nationwide, as the state government offered a reward of one million Australian dollars ($676,000) for information leading to her location.

    For more than two weeks, police amassed evidence, including interviews, security video footage, phone data and calls from hundreds of people offering information as her distraught parents made desperate appeals for help to find her.

    Eventually the information pointed to a single-story house in the coastal town of Carnarvon, about 73 kilometers (45 miles) south of the campsite where she went missing.

    Four officers entered the house, not far from the family’s own home, just after midnight on November 3, 2021, where they found Cleo alone in a bedroom.

    During the sentencing hearing, the court was told Kelly went to the campsite looking for things to steal, but when he entered the family’s tent and saw the sleeping child he decided to “steal her.”

    At the time, Cleo was sleeping within meters of her mother, stepfather and baby sister, near the door of the zipped tent, draped in a sleeping bag.

    The court heard Kelly quietly gathered the child and the sleeping bag and drove her in his car to his home.

    Chief Judge Julie Wager said Kelly’s actions were at the “highest level of seriousness.”

    “This isn’t a case of luring a child away … but the taking of a little four-year-old girl from the zipped-up family tent in the middle of the night when her parents assumed she was safe is even more concerning,” she said.

    The court heard Kelly was aware of the huge police search for Cleo, but went about his “usual business,” regularly leaving the child alone in a room that locked from the outside.

    Cleo repeatedly pleaded for her parents, the court heard, especially her mother, but Kelly turned up the radio so the neighbors wouldn’t hear any noises she made.

    At one stage, Cleo heard her name on the radio and said, “They’re saying my name,” the court heard.

    Addressing Kelly, Wager said: “You were aware of this and, at an early stage, aware that the authorities were looking for her.”

    Kelly is eligible for parole two years before the end of his sentence, which was reduced because he pleaded guilty early, sparing Cleo and her family the trauma of testifying at trial, the judge said.

    Back in November 2021, the girl’s discovery after such an extensive search was celebrated by the police officers who found her.

    “To see her sitting there in the way that she was, was incredible,” Detective Senior Sergeant Cameron Blaine told reporters the day she was found.

    “I just wanted to be absolutely sure it was her, so I said, ‘What’s your name?’” he said.

    She said: “My name is Cleo,” according to police, who filmed the moment on bodycam.

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  • Australia bans TikTok on federal government devices | CNN Business

    Australia bans TikTok on federal government devices | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Australia has joined other Western countries in banning the use of TikTok on government devices as the Chinese-owned video app comes under increasing pressure over claims it presents a security concern.

    Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced the ban on Tuesday after receiving advice from intelligence and security agencies, saying the directive would be imposed “as soon as practicable.”

    The decision puts Australia in line with its allies from the Five Eyes intelligence alliance – the US, Britain and Canada have already announced similar restrictions, while New Zealand’s parliament also ordered the app be removed from all devices with access to the legislature.

    Norway and the European Parliament have made similar moves, and last week NATO banned staffers from downloading the app onto NATO-provided devices, according to two NATO officials familiar with the matter.

    Lee Hunter, general manager of TikTok in Australia and New Zealand, said the company is “extremely disappointed by this decision, which, in our view, is driven by politics.”

    “Our millions of Australian users deserve a government which makes decisions based upon facts and who treats all businesses fairly, regardless of country of origin,” he said.

    He also stressed that the firm had repeatedly reached out to the Australian government for constructive engagement, while maintaining that there had been no evidence to suggest the app posed a security risk to the country.

    As of early 2023, Australia has more than 8 million users age 18 and over, according to the company, citing a report from DataReportal, which studies digital trends worldwide.

    A notice issued by the Attorney General’s Department said TikTok poses security and privacy risks due to the “extensive collection of user data and exposure to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law.”

    So far, there’s no evidence the Chinese government has accessed TikTok user data, and no government has enacted a broader ban targeting TikTok on personal devices.

    However, the Biden administration has threatened to do that in the United States unless the app’s Chinese owners, Bytedance, agree to spin off their share of the social media platform.

    The US government is worried China could use its national security laws to access the significant amount of personal information that TikTok, like most social media applications, collects from its US users.

    During a high profile congressional hearing on the matter, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew was grilled about the tech firm’s alleged ties to the Chinese government.

    Chew has said the Chinese government had never asked TikTok for its data and that the company would refuse any such request.

    For its part, China’s Commerce Ministry said it would “firmly oppose” any decision resulting in the forced sale of TikTok, adding that it would “seriously damage” global investors’ confidence in the United States.

    Like some of the other countries which have imposed the curb, Australia’s attorney general said any exemptions would be granted “on a case-by-case basis and with appropriate security mitigation in place.”

    Dreyfus also said the government had recently received the review into foreign interference through social media applications from the country’s Home Affairs Department, with its recommendations being considered.

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  • Crucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn | CNN

    Crucial Antarctic ocean circulation heading for collapse if planet-warming pollution remains high, scientists warn | CNN

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    Brisbane, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    Melting ice in the Antarctic is not just raising sea levels but slowing down the circulation of deep ocean water with vast implications for the global climate and for marine life, a new study warns.

    Led by scientists from the University of New South Wales and published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the peer-reviewed study modeled the impact of melting Antarctic ice on deep ocean currents that work to flush nutrients from the sea floor to fish near the surface.

    Three years of computer modeling found the Antarctic overturning circulation – also known as abyssal ocean overturning – is on track to slow 42% by 2050 if the world continues to burn fossil fuels and produce high levels of planet-heating pollution.

    A slow down is expected to speed up ice melt and potentially end an ocean system that has helped sustain life for thousands of years.

    “The projections we have make it look like the Antarctic overturning would collapse this century,” said Matthew England, deputy director of the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, who coordinated the study.

    “In the past, these overturning circulations changed over the course of 1,000 years or so, and we’re talking about changes within a few decades. So it is pretty dramatic,” he said.

    Most previous studies have focused on the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), the system of currents that carry warm water from the tropics into the North Atlantic. The cold, saltier water then sinks and flows south.

    Its Southern Ocean equivalent is less studied but does an important job moving nutrient-dense water north from Antarctica, past New Zealand and into the North Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean, the report’s authors said in a briefing.

    The circulation of deep ocean water is considered vital for the health of the sea – and plays an important role in sequestering carbon absorbed from the atmosphere.

    According to the report, while a slowdown of the AMOC would mean the deep Atlantic Ocean would get colder, the slower circulation of dense water in the Antarctic means the deepest waters of the Southern Ocean will warm up.

    “One of the concerning things of this slowdown is that there can be feedback to further ocean warming at the base of the ice shelves around Antarctica. And that would lead to more ice melt, reinforcing or amplifying the original change,” England said.

    As global temperatures rise, Antarctic ice is expected to melt faster, but that doesn’t mean the circulation of deep water will increase – in fact the opposite, scientists said.

    In a healthy system, the cold and salty – or dense – consistency of melted Antarctic ice allows it to sink to the deepest layer of the ocean. From there it sweeps north, carrying carbon and higher levels of oxygen than might otherwise be present in water around 4,000 meters deep.

    As the current moves northward, it agitates deep layers of debris on the ocean floor – remains of decomposing sea life thick with nutrients – that feed the bottom of the food chain, scientists said.

    In certain areas, mostly south of Australia in the Southern Ocean and in the tropics, this nutrient-rich cold water moves toward the surface in a process called upwelling, distributing the nutrients to higher layers of the ocean, England said.

    However, Wednesday’s study found that as global temperatures warm, melting sea ice “freshens” the water around Antarctica, diluting its saltiness and raising its temperature, meaning it’s less dense and doesn’t sink to the bottom as efficiently as it once did.

    The report’s co-author, Steve Rintoul from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian Antarctic Program Partnership, said sea life in waters worldwide rely on nutrients brought back up to the surface, and that the Antarctic overturning is a key component of that upwelling of nutrients.

    “We know that nutrients exported from the Southern Ocean in other current systems support about three quarters of global phytoplankton production – the base of the food chain,” he said.

    “We’ve shown that the sinking of dense water near Antarctica will decline by 40% by 2050. And it’ll be sometime between 2050 and 2100 that we start to see the impacts of that on surface productivity.”

    England added: “People born today are going to be around then. So, it’s certainly stuff that will challenge societies in the future.”

    Fishing boats at a floating fish farm off Rongcheng, China.

    The report’s authors say the slowing of the Antarctic ocean overturning has other knock-on effects for the planet – for example, it could shift rain bands in the tropics by as much as 1,000 kilometers (621 miles).

    “Shut it down completely and you get this reduction of rainfall in one band south of the equator and an increase in the band to the north. So we could see impacts on rainfall in the tropics,” said England.

    Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in its latest report that the impacts of rising global temperatures were more severe than expected. Without immediate and deep changes, the world is hurtling toward increasingly dangerous and irreversible consequences of climate change, it added.

    The IPCC report found that the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels was still possible, but it’s becoming harder to achieve the longer the world fails to cut carbon pollution.

    England points out that the IPCC predictions don’t include ice melt from Antarctic ice sheets and shelves.

    “That’s a very significant component of change that’s already underway around Antarctica with more to come in the next few decades,” England said.

    Rintoul said the study was another urgent warning on top of all the ones that have come before it.

    “Even though the direct effect on fisheries through reduced nutrient supply might take decades to play out, we will commit ourselves to that future with the choices we make over the next decade.”

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  • Millions of dead fish have washed up in a river near an Australian town | CNN

    Millions of dead fish have washed up in a river near an Australian town | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Millions of dead fish have washed up in a river near a small Australian town, in a phenomenon state officials say is related to the “heatwave conditions” that are sweeping the country.

    Video emerged this week showing masses of dead fish floating at the Menindee Weir pool near Broken Hill, CNN affiliate 9News Australia reported.

    “Significant volumes” of fish, including carp and bony herring, along with nutrients and organic matter from the flood plain, have been forced back up the river due to the hot weather, according to the Department of Primary Industries (DPI) in New South Wales.

    “These fish deaths are related to low oxygen levels in the water (hypoxia) as flood waters recede,” it explained in a statement this week.

    “This event is ongoing as a heatwave… continues to put further stress on a system that has experienced extreme conditions from wide-scale flooding,” the DPI said.

    “The current hot weather in the region is also exacerbating hypoxia, as warmer water holds less oxygen than cold water and fish have higher oxygen needs at warmer temperatures,” it added.

    Heatwaves across Australia have become more frequent and intense as climate change worsens and global temperatures continue to rise.

    Experts and government agencies have warned that Australia will continue to see spikes in extreme rainfall and heat, as well as more dangerous fires.

    Menindee, a rural town in the far west of New South Wales state, has a population of around 500 residents, according to census figures.

    Dead fish sightings were also reported this week in the Macquarie Valley, where there are both suburbs and a national park.

    This wasn’t the first time Menindee residents have witnessed mass fish deaths.

    Thousands of dead fish were reported in the area in February and a similar event occurred in the region in 2019.

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  • New Zealand joins US push to curb TikTok use on official phones with parliament ban | CNN Business

    New Zealand joins US push to curb TikTok use on official phones with parliament ban | CNN Business

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    Hong Kong
    CNN
     — 

    New Zealand will ban TikTok on all devices with access to its parliament by the end of this month, becoming the latest country to impose an official bar on the popular social media platform owned by a Beijing-based tech conglomerate.

    Led by the United States, a growing number of Western nations are imposing restrictions on the use of TikTok on government devices citing national security concerns.

    Rafael Gonzalez-Montero, chief executive of New Zealand’s parliamentary service, said in a Friday statement that the risks of keeping the video-sharing app “are not acceptable.”

    “This decision has been made based on our own experts’ analysis and following discussion with our colleagues across government and internationally,” he wrote.

    “On advice from our cyber security experts, Parliamentary Service has informed members and staff the app TikTok will be removed from all devices with access to the parliamentary network,” he added.

    But those who need the app to “perform their democratic duties” may be granted an exception, he said.

    CNN has reached out to TikTok and its Beijing-based owner ByteDance for comment.

    In an email to members of parliament seen by CNN, Gonzalez-Montero told lawmakers that the app would be removed from their corporate devices on March 31, after which they would not be able to re-download it.

    He also instructed legislators to uninstall the app from their private devices adding that failure to comply may render them unable to access the parliamentary network.

    New Zealand lawmaker Simon O’Connor, who is also a co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), told CNN that he welcomed the decision, calling it “a good one”.

    “I – and IPAC as a whole – have had serious concerns about data privacy for some time,” he said, adding that TikTok’s replies to his previous enquiries about data security had been “unsatisfactory”.

    IPAC is a cross-border group formed by legislators from democratic countries that is focused on relations with China and is often critical of Beijing’s leaders.

    New Zealand’s decision came on the heels of similar actions already taken by its Western allies, despite the country’s track record of a more cautious approach when it comes to dealing with Beijing, in part because China is such a significant trade partner.

    The United States, UK and Canada have ordered the removal of the app from all government phones, citing cybersecurity concerns.

    All three countries are part of the the so-called “Five Eyes” alliance that cooperates with each other on intelligence gathering and sharing. Australia and New Zealand make up the five.

    The Chinese video-sharing app is also barred in all three of the European Union’s main government institutions.

    Tik Tok has become one of the world’s most successful social media platforms and is hugely popular among younger people.

    The short video sharing app has more than 100 million users in the United States alone.

    New Zealand’s latest move came just hours after TikTok acknowledged that the Biden administration had threatened to ban its operation nationwide unless its Chinese owners agreed to spin off their share of the social media platform.

    US officials have raised fears that the Chinese government could use its national security laws to pressure TikTok or its parent company ByteDance into handing over the personal information of TikTok’s US users, which might then benefit Chinese intelligence activities or influence campaigns.

    China has accused the United States of “unreasonably suppressing” TikTok and spreading “false information” about data security.

    FBI Director Christopher Wray told the US Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month that he feared the Chinese government could use TikTok to sway public opinion in the event that China invaded Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims sovereignty over despite never having ruled it.

    TikTok has repeatedly denied posing any sort of security risk and has said it is willing to work with regulators to address any concerns they might have.

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  • A radioactive cylinder has gone missing in Thailand. Authorities are now scrambling to find it | CNN

    A radioactive cylinder has gone missing in Thailand. Authorities are now scrambling to find it | CNN

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    Bangkok, Thailand
    CNN
     — 

    Authorities in Thailand are scrambling to locate a metal cylinder with dangerous radioactive contents that went missing from a power plant this week, warning the public of serious health risks should they come across it.

    The revelation comes just two months after Australia was forced to launch a similar hunt to find a tiny radioactive capsule that was eventually located by the side of a highway.

    But while that Australian capsule was lost in the country’s remote outback hundreds of miles from the nearest major city – the Thai canister has disappeared in a much more populated area.

    The cylinder, measuring 30 centimeters (4 inches) long and 13 centimeters (5 inches) wide, was reported missing during routine checks by staff on March 10, at the coal power plant in Prachin Buri, a province in central Thailand, east of the capital Bangkok.

    The province has a population of nearly half a million people and houses some of Thailand’s best national parks, including the famed Khao Yai National Park which is popular with both local and international tourists.

    The parks are a common day trip from nearby Bangkok, a sprawling megacity of some 14 million people.

    Used for measuring ash, the cylinder was part of a silo and contains Caesium-137, a highly radioactive substance that scientists say is potentially lethal.

    Search teams and drones have been deployed to recover the missing cylinder, according to a statement from the Office of Atoms for Peace (OAP), a government regulator for radioactive and nuclear research in Thailand.

    Deputy Secretary General Pennapa Kanchana told CNN on Wednesday they were using radioactive detection equipment to locate the cylinder.

    “We are searching in waste recycling shops in the area,” she said. “We are (using) survey equipment to detect for signals. For areas we cannot reach, we have dispatched drones and robots.”

    Also involved in the search are Thai police, who believe the cylinder has been missing since February but was only officially reported lost by the National Power Plant 5 company on Friday.

    Police have examined CCTV footage from the plant, Si Maha Phot district police chief Mongkol Thopao told CNN – but were hindered by “limited views” of the machine.

    “It is unclear if the item was stolen and sold to a recycling shop or misplaced elsewhere,” Mongkol said. “We have dispatched our teams to recycle shops around the area… we still couldn’t find it.”

    Experts warn that Caesium-137 can create serious health problems for people who come into contact with it: skin burns from close exposure, radiation sickness and potentially deadly cancer risks, especially for those exposed unknowingly for long periods of time.

    Caesium-137 has a half-life of about 30 years, which means it could pose a risk to the population for decades to come, if not found.

    Pennapa, from the Office of Atoms for Peace, urged the public not to panic.

    “If general people (come into) contact unknowingly, the health effects will depend on the level of the (radiation) intensity. If it’s high, the first thing we will see is skin irritation.”

    It is not the first time something like this has happened in Thailand.

    In 2000, according to the Congressional Research Service report, canisters containing another radioactive isotope, cobalt-60, were bought by two scrap collectors, who took it to a junkyard where it was cut open.

    Some workers suffered burn-like injuries, and eventually three people died and seven others suffered radiation injuries, the report said. Nearly 2,000 others who lived nearby were exposed to radiation.

    But Pennapa said the canister that is currently missing is far less radioactive than the incident in 2000.

    The most recent case in Thailand follows a similar incident in Western Australia in January when a tiny capsule, also containing Caesium-137, went missing along a remote outback highway while being transported from an iron ore mine to a depot in Perth.

    After a challenging six-day search, the capsule was eventually found and officials are still investigating how it apparently fell off the back of a vehicle during transit.

    Nuclear radiation experts in Australia who previously spoke to CNN said that the loss of that capsule was “very unusual” and spoke about challenges of recovering such a tiny device.

    But a good thing, they said, was that the search area was extremely isolated.

    “So it would be very unlikely to have much impact (on people),” said Ivan Kempson, an associate professor in Biophysics from the University of Southern Australia.

    But there had been some past examples, Kempson noted, of people finding similar things and suffering radiation poisoning.

    “The concern… is the potential impact on health of the person who would find the capsule,” he said.

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  • Australia, the UK and US are joining forces in the Pacific, but will nuclear subs arrive quick enough to counter China? | CNN

    Australia, the UK and US are joining forces in the Pacific, but will nuclear subs arrive quick enough to counter China? | CNN

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    Canberra, Australia
    CNN
     — 

    More than a year after the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia dropped the tightly held news they were combining submarine forces, the trio released more details Monday of their ambitious plan to counter China’s rapid military expansion.

    Under the multi-decade AUKUS deal, the partners will build a combined fleet of elite nuclear-powered submarines using technology, labor and funding from all three countries, creating a more formidable force in the Indo-Pacific than any of them could achieve alone.

    But the long timeline and huge financial costs – running into the hundreds of billions for Australia alone – poses questions about how far the partners’ plans could stray from their “optimal pathway” in the decades to come as governments, and potentially priorities, change.

    In a joint statement Monday, US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and UK counterpart Rishi Sunak said the “historic” deal will build on past efforts by all three countries to “sustain peace, stability, and prosperity around the world.”

    The plan begins this year with training rotations for Australian personnel on US and UK subs and bases in the expectation that in roughly 20 years, they’ll commandeer Australia’s first ever nuclear-powered fleet.

    But there’s a long way to go between now and then, as outlined in a series of phases announced by the leaders as they stood side-by-side in San Diego Harbor.

    From 2023, along with training Australians, US nuclear-powered subs will increase port visits to Australia, joined three years later by more visits from British-owned nuclear-powered subs.

    Come 2027, the US and UK subs will start rotations at HMAS Stirling, an Australian military port near Perth, Western Australia that’s set to receive a multibillion dollar upgrade.

    Then from the early 2030s, pending Congress approval, Australia will buy three Virginia-class submarines from the US, with an option to buy two more.

    Within the same decade, the UK plans to build its first AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine – combining its Astute-class submarine with US combat systems and weapons.

    Soon after, in the early 2040s, Australia will deliver the first of its homemade AUKUS subs to its Royal Navy.

    As a series of bullet points on the page, the plan seems straightforward.

    But the complexities involved are staggering and require an unprecedented level of investment and information sharing between the three partners, whose leaders’ political careers are set to be far shorter than those of the man they are working to counter: China’s Xi Jinping.

    Last week China’s political elite endorsed Xi’s unprecedented third term, solidifying his control and making him the longest-serving head of state of Communist China since its founding in 1949.

    The most assertive Chinese leader in a generation, Xi has expanded his country’s military forces and sought to extend Beijing’s influence far across the Indo-Pacific, rattling Western powers.

    Richard Dunley, from the University of New South Wales, said Australia was under pressure to respond after years of inaction and the proposal is an impressive scramble for a workable plan.

    “It’s a last roll of the dice. And they’ve managed to just about thread the eye of a needle coming up with something that looks plausible.”

    A rush of diplomacy took place before Monday’s announcement, partly to avoid the shock impact of the initial announcement in 2021, when French President Emmanuel Macron accused former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison of lying to him when he pulled out of a 90 billion Australian dollar deal to buy French subs.

    That deal would have delivered new submarines on a faster timeline, but they would have been conventional diesel-powered vessels instead of state of the art nuclear ones.

    Australia learned from that diplomatic row and its senior leaders – including Albanese – made around 60 calls to allies and regional neighbors to inform them of the plan before it was announced, according to Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles.

    China wasn’t one of them.

    Biden told reporters Monday that he plans to speak with Xi soon but declined to say when that would be, adding that he was not concerned Xi would see the AUKUS announcement as aggression.

    That contrasts with the sentiment emerging from Beijing including its accusations the trio is fomenting an arms race in Asia.

    At a daily briefing Monday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the AUKUS partners had “completely ignored the concerns of the international community and gone further down a wrong and dangerous road.”

    He said the deal would “stimulate an arms race, undermine the international nuclear non-proliferation system and damage regional peace and stability.”

    Peter Dean, director of Foreign Policy and Defense at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney, said the Chinese claims are overblown.

    “If there is an arms race in the Indo-Pacific, there is only one country that is racing, and that is China,” he told CNN.

    The US will sell up to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.

    Smaller countries around the region are watching the AUKUS plan with concern that a greater presence in their waters could lead to unintended conflict, said Ristian Atriandi Supriyanto, from the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University.

    “With more rotational presence of US and UK subs in Australia, there is a greater necessity for China to surveil these units and thereby, increase the likelihood of accidents or incidents at sea,” he said.

    Biden stressed Monday that he wanted “the world to understand” that the agreement was “talking about nuclear power not nuclear weapons.”

    According to a White House fact sheet, the US and UK will give Australian nuclear material in sealed “welded power units” that will not require refueling. Australia has committed to disposing of nuclear waste in Australia on defense-owned land. But that won’t happen until at least the late 2050s, when the Virginia-class vessels are retired.

    Australia says it doesn’t have the capability to enrich it to weapons grade, won’t acquire it and wants to abide by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) principles on non-proliferation.

    The AUKUS plan is an admission by Australia that without submarines that can spend long periods of time at great depths, the country is woefully unprepared to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.

    “It is hugely complex and hugely risky,” said Dunley from the University of New South Wales.

    “But when the original announcement and decision was made in 2021, there were very few good options left for Australia. So I think they’ve come out as well as they could have done,” he added.

    Multiple challenge are posed by a project of this scale, which includes many moving parts with potential knock-on effects to the timeline and cost.

    The deal involves upgrades to ports and fleets, including expanding the operational life of Australia’s Collins-class submarines to the 2040s, to aid in the transition to nuclear.

    “You’re having to take submarines out for quite a significant chunk of time to refit them, and if there are delays or issues that could cascade and you could see issues where Australia actually doesn’t have enough submariners to maintain its current forces of mariners, let alone augment that,” Dunley said.

    As all three countries race to expand their fleets, training enough staff could become a serious challenge, Dunley said.

    The security element of the roles mean the pool of skilled workers is inevitably shallow. Efforts are being made in all countries to entice trainees to a life below the surface of the sea for months at a time – potentially not an easy sell in a competitive jobs market.

    And then there’s the funding.

    The Australian government says it’ll find 0.15% of gross domestic product every year for 30 years – a cost of up to $245 billion (368 billion Australian dollars).

    Max Bergmann, the director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the deal will ultimately require healthy economies, and all three countries are dealing with cost of living pressures.

    “The UK economy is not doing great. And part of what it will need is a thriving economy, such that it can maintain the level of spending needed,” he told a reporter briefing.

    Xi’s move to allow himself to retain the Chinese leadership for life means he could be approaching his 90s by the time Australia and Britain have launched their new AUKUS fleets.

    By then, the landscape of the Indo-Pacific could be vastly changed.

    Xi, 69, has made it clear that the issue of Taiwan, an island democracy that China’s Communist Party claims but has never ruled, cannot be passed indefinitely down to other generations.

    For now, Australia says it is confident of continued bipartisan support in Washington for program, which will rely on the ongoing transfer of nuclear material and other weapons secrets from the US.

    “We enter this with a high degree of confidence,” Defense Minister Marles said Monday.

    However the risk remains that in future years an inward-facing US leader in the style of former President Donald Trump – or even perhaps Trump himself – could emerge to threaten the deal.

    Charles Edel, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the deal was about much more than a combined effort to change China’s calculations about its security environment.

    “It’s meant to transform the industrial shipbuilding capacity of all three nations, it’s meant as a technological accelerator, it’s meant to change the balance of power in the Indo-Pacific, and, ultimately, it’s meant to change the model of how the United States works with and empowers its closest allies.”

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  • China looms large as Biden makes submarine moves with UK, Australia | CNN Politics

    China looms large as Biden makes submarine moves with UK, Australia | CNN Politics

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    San Diego
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden was flanked on Monday by a 377-foot submarine – the USS Missouri – as he announced an accelerated timeline for Australia to receive its own nuclear-powered submarines early next decade.

    But looming much larger was the increasingly tense US relationship with China, which has emerged as a central focus of Biden’s presidency. That relationship has been magnified in recent weeks by a slew of global events, from the dramatic downing of a Chinese spy balloon to the revelation that Beijing is considering arming Russia – all taking place amid Chinese President Xi Jinping’s unprecedented consolidation of power and a growing bipartisan consensus in Washington about the risks China poses.

    US officials readily acknowledge that tensions with China are higher than they have been in recent years and that Beijing’s heated public rhetoric of late is reflective of the state of private relations. It’s why Biden’s multi-pronged China strategy has involved a bid to normalize diplomatic relations even as the US pursues policies like Monday’s submarine announcement designed to counter China’s global influence and its military movements.

    “Today, as we stand at the inflection point in history, where the hard work of enhancing deterrence and promoting stability is going to affect the prospects of peace for decades to come, the United States can ask for no better partners in the Indo-Pacific, where so much of our shared future will be written,” Biden said Monday, standing alongside his Australian and British counterparts.

    The effort to re-open lines of communication with China, especially between each country’s top military brass following the spy balloon incident, has shown no signs of progress, according to a senior administration official.

    “Quite the contrary, China appears resistant at this juncture to actually move forward in establishing those dialogues and mechanisms,” the official said. “What we need are the appropriate mechanisms between senior government officials, between the military, between the various crisis managers on both sides to be able to communicate when there is something that is either accidental or just misinterpreted.”

    Against that backdrop, Biden faces a series of decisions over the coming weeks and months that have the potential to exacerbate tensions further, including placing new curbs on investments by American companies in China and restricting or blocking the US operations of the popular social media platform TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company. And in Beijing, Chinese officials must soon decide whether to flaunt US warnings and begin providing lethal weaponry to Russia in its war in Ukraine.

    Monday’s update on the new three-way defense partnership between the US, Australia and the United Kingdom is the latest step meant to counter China’s attempts at naval dominance in the Indo-Pacific and, potentially, its designs on invading self-governing Taiwan. Australia will now receive its first of at least three advanced submarines early next decade, faster than predicted when the AUKUS partnership launched 18 months ago, and US submarines like the USS Missouri will rotate through Australian ports in the meantime.

    “The United States has safeguarded stability in Indo-Pacific for decades, to the enormous benefits of nations throughout the region from ASEAN to Pacific Islanders to the People’s Republic of China,” Biden said during his remarks. “In fact, our leadership in the Pacific has been the benefit to the entire world. We’ve kept the sea lanes and skies open and navigable for all. We’ve upheld basic rules of the road.”

    His British counterpart was more explicit, naming China as a cause for concern.

    “China’s growing assertiveness, the destabilizing behavior of Iran and North Korea all threaten to create a world defined by danger, disorder and division,” said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. “Faced with this new reality, it is more important than ever, that we strengthen the resilience of our own countries.”

    Even before Biden traveled to Naval Base Point Loma in California to herald that progress alongside the British and Australian prime ministers, China was quick to lambast the move as advancing a “Cold War mentality and zero-sum games.”

    That China did not wait for the announcement itself to lash out is a sign of just how closely Beijing is watching Biden’s moves in the Pacific, where the US military is expanding its presence and helping other nations modernize their fleets.

    And it’s another example of Biden’s view of China as the leading long-term threat to global peace and stability, even as Russia’s war in Ukraine consumes current US diplomatic and military attention.

    The first shipment, due in 2032, will be of three American Virginia-class attack submarines, which are designed to employ a number of different weapons, including torpedoes and cruise missiles. The subs can also carry special operations forces and carry out intelligence and reconnaissance missions.

    That will be followed in the 2040s by British-designed submarines, containing American technology, that will transform Australia’s underwater capabilities over the course of the next 25 years.

    Before then, US submarines will rotationally deploy to Australia to begin training Australian crews on the advanced technology, scaling up American defense posture in the region.

    The submarines will not carry nuclear weapons and US, Australian and British officials have insisted the plans are consistent with international non-proliferation rules, despite Chinese protestations.

    The message sent by the announcement is unmistakable: The US and its allies view China’s burgeoning naval ambitions as a top threat to their security, and are preparing for a long-term struggle. Already this year, the US announced it was expanding its military presence in the Philippines and welcomed moves by Japan to strengthen its military.

    “It’s deeply consequential,” a senior administration official said of the AUKUS partnership. “The Chinese know that, they recognize it and they’ll want to engage accordingly.”

    US officials said Britain’s participation in the new submarine project is a sign of Europe’s growing concerns about tensions in the Pacific – concerns that have emerged within NATO, even as the alliance remains consumed by the war in Ukraine. And in conversations with European leaders over the past month, including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday, Biden has raised the issue of China in the hopes of developing a coordinated approach.

    The looming question now is whether China will choose to reengage and improve diplomatic relations with the US despite the heightened tensions.

    Successive phone calls and a November face-to-face meeting with Xi have so far yielded only halting progress in establishing what administration officials describe as a “floor” in the relationship.

    Four months after that meeting, progress has largely stalled on reopening lines of communication between Washington and Beijing, once viewed as the primary takeaway from the three-hour session in Bali. Speaking to CNN in late February, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said it had been months since he’d spoken to his Chinese counterpart.

    And public remarks from Chinese leaders, including Xi, have begun to sharpen over the past week, a sign the confrontational approach of the past year is not waning.

    Biden and his advisers have largely downplayed the new, sharp tone emanating from Beijing. Asked by CNN on Thursday about the meaning of new rebukes from Xi and Foreign Minister Qin Gang, Biden replied flatly: “Not much.”

    On Monday, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said a conversation between Biden and Xi would likely occur now that China’s National People’s Congress has concluded and a slate of Chinese officials take up their new positions following the rubber-stamp parliament’s annual meeting.

    “We have said that when the National People’s Congress comes to a close, as it now has, and Chinese leadership returns to Beijing, and then all of these new officials take their new seats, because of course you now have a new set of figures in substantial leadership positions, we would expect President Biden and President Xi to have a conversation. So at some point in the coming period,” Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One.

    He said there was no date set yet for a Xi-Biden phone call, but that Biden “has indicated his willingness to have a telephone conversation with President Xi once they’re back in stride coming off the National People’s Congress.”

    Tensions appeared to hit a new level last week after Xi directly rebuked US policy as “all-round containment, encirclement and suppression against us.” Qin, in remarks the next day, defined the “competition” Biden has long sought to frame as central to the relationship between the two powers as “a reckless gamble.”

    “If the United States does not hit the brakes but continues to speed down the wrong path, no amount of guardrails can prevent derailing, and there will surely be conflict and confrontation,” Qin said.

    A senior administration official acknowledged that Xi’s recent rhetoric has been “more direct” than in the past, but said the White House continues to believe that Xi “will again want to sit down and engage at the highest level” now that he has completed his latest consolidation of power.

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  • Exclusive: China’s ‘attacks’ unite region against Beijing, US ambassador to Japan says | CNN

    Exclusive: China’s ‘attacks’ unite region against Beijing, US ambassador to Japan says | CNN

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    Tokyo
    CNN
     — 

    China should not be surprised Washington and its allies in Asia are deepening military ties given Beijing’s aggressive behavior toward many of its neighbors, the US ambassador to Japan said Wednesday in an exclusive interview with CNN.

    “You look at India, you look at the Philippines, you look at Australia, you look at the United States, Canada or Japan. They (China) have had in just the last three months a military or some type of confrontation with every country. And then they’re shocked that countries are taking their own steps for deterrence to protect themselves. What did they think they were going to do?” Ambassador Rahm Emanuel said in the interview at his residence in Tokyo.

    The US envoy listed a string of what he said were aggressive military actions by China, including “attacks” against India along their shared Himalayan border, Chinese coast guard ships aiming lasers at Philippine vessels in the South China Sea, the firing of missiles into Japan’s exclusive economic zone and the harassment of US, Canadian and Australian aircraft by People’s Liberation Army ships and planes.

    Beijing has denied being an aggressor in all those instances and accused Washington of being the primary instigator of heightened tensions in the region.

    On Tuesday, China’s new Foreign Minister Qin Gang warned that “conflict and confrontation” with the US is inevitable if Washington does not change course.

    “The US claims it seeks to compete with China but does not seek conflict. But in reality, the so-called ‘competition’ by the US is all-round containment and suppression, a zero-sum game of life and death,” he said during his first news conference in the new post.

    “Containment and suppression will not make America great, and the US will not stop the rejuvenation of China,” Qin said.

    Emanuel countered on Wednesday that military buildups and exercises by the US and its partners in the Indo-Pacific are not acts of containment, as Beijing charges, but acts of deterrence against further – and possibly more dangerous – Chinese aggression.

    “They’ve come together to realize that (Chinese aggression) can’t continue as is, so every country is taking steps, both within an alliance (and) also within their own self-interest of creating a comprehensive coalition of deterrence. That’s what’s going on,” Emanuel said.

    He praised Japan for doubling its defense budget and taking on a leadership role in the region, citing plans for it to operate joint South China Sea patrols with the Philippines and its agreement with South Korea just this week to settle grievances dating back to before World War II concerning Japan’s colonial rule in Korea.

    And he praised both Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol for putting the future before history and taking a stance that has prompted domestic backlash in both Tokyo and Seoul.

    “I do think that both leaders showed a braveness and a boldness to look to the 21st century and make the most of that rather than being tied by 20th century,” Emanuel said.

    “To me the test of leadership is to be idealistic enough to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. And then tough enough to get it done,” he said, adding that both Kishida and Yoon had passed that test.

    The US ambassador also contrasted the countries Japan has been partnering with, including South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, India and even the United Kingdom, with countries with whom China works, including Russia, North Korea and Iran.

    “There’s a phrase in America, you’re known by the company you keep,” Emanuel said.

    Over the past 18 months, the Biden administration has been keeping good company, too, he said, noting its record in uniting allies and partners.

    Emanuel cited multilateral agreements like the Quad – the informal alliance of the US, Japan, Australia and India – and the AUKUS deal for nuclear-powered submarines between the US, Australia and the UK as well as other economic, diplomatic and military initiatives.

    “I think that has given our allies confidence, like Japan, to increase the defense budget, to be more active on the diplomatic arena and stage,” he said, giving credit to Tokyo for getting eight of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to vote to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a March 3 United Nations General Assembly vote.

    Countries around the world will respond to Japan, or South Korea, or the US for a simple reason that China doesn’t understand, “the gravitational pull of freedom,” Emanuel said.

    “A rules-based system that upholds respect both for the individual and in trying to uphold freedom has its own, I don’t know how else to say it, but seductive gravitational pull.”

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  • Australia wins sixth Women’s T20 World Cup with victory over South Africa | CNN

    Australia wins sixth Women’s T20 World Cup with victory over South Africa | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Australia won the Women’s T20 World Cup in brilliant fashion, defeating home side South Africa by 19 runs in front of a sold out Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town on Saturday

    Victory once again underlined Australia’s dominance in the sport, as the team completed a repeat three-peat under captain Meg Lanning and won the tournament for the sixth time in seven editions.

    “It is a pretty special effort from the group,” Lanning told Sky Sports afterwards.

    “We felt we had a good score and felt confident if we could hit our areas. We set the tone in an excellent powerplay. We have a special group, not just the players but also the support staff.”

    After Lanning won the toss and elected to bat first, the Australian openers, Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney, navigated their way through the first few overs as the home crowd urged on the South African attack.

    Healy fell in the fifth over, caught by Nadine de Klerk off Marizanne Kapp’s bowling, but Mooney stayed at the crease for an impressive unbeaten 74 off just 53 balls.

    She showcased her full range of shots during her innings, anchoring her side’s score, as frugal South African bowling largely restricted the Australians from posting a sizeable score.

    Ash Gardner, who was named player of the tournament, contributed an important cameo of 29 off 21 balls while Mooney’s 11 runs in the last over helped Australia to a respectable 156-6.

    It seemed an achievable, if tricky, target for South Africa to reach but a slow start left them 22/1 after six overs and with too much ground to claw back.

    Although South Africa accelerated late on, led by Laura Wolvaardt’s 61 from 48 balls, accurate bowling and crisp fielding stifled any comeback and secured Australia’s victory.

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  • Armed group has released its last three hostages in Papua New Guinea, says prime minister | CNN

    Armed group has released its last three hostages in Papua New Guinea, says prime minister | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A group of hostages being held for ransom by armed criminals in a remote region of Papua New Guinea have all now been freed, the country’s Prime Minister James Marape said Sunday.

    “We apologize to the families of those taken as hostages for ransom, it took us a while but the last three have been successfully returned through covert operations with no (ransom) paid,” Marape wrote in a Facebook post.

    A group of four hostages, which included foreign citizens and local guides, had been captured by a group of heavily armed men described by national police on Monday as “opportunists”, but one of them – a woman – was freed on Wednesday.

    In a tweet on Sunday, New Zealand’s foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta welcomed the release of the group, which included a New Zealander who is a professor at an Australian university.

    PNG Police Commissioner David Manning had previously said the hostage-takers had spotted the group “by chance” and taken them into the bush.

    “These are opportunists that have obviously not thought this situation through before they acted, and have been asking for cash to be paid,” Manning said.

    Papua New Guinea, a Pacific nation of more than 9 million people, shares an island with the restive Indonesian region of Papua.

    In a separate incident earlier this month, a New Zealand pilot was taken hostage by separatist fighters in Papua. Identified by local police as Philip Mehrtens, the pilot was captured after landing a commercial Susi Air charter flight at Paro Airport in the remote highlands of the Nduga regency.

    The group previously demanded that all incoming flights to Paro Airport be stopped and said the pilot would not be released until the Indonesian government acknowledged Papuan independence.

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  • Power outage disrupts New York’s JFK Airport Terminal 1 | CNN

    Power outage disrupts New York’s JFK Airport Terminal 1 | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    A power outage is disrupting flights at a John F. Kennedy International Airport terminal, the airport said Thursday.

    The outage at Terminal 1 was caused by an electrical panel failure that resulted in a “small isolated fire overnight that was immediately extinguished,” the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a statement.

    “The power outage is currently impacting the terminal’s ability to accept inbound and outbound flights,” the statement said.

    Other terminals are being used to accommodate the affected flights, and travelers should check with their airlines for flight status, the Port Authority said.

    An Air New Zealand flight that was due to land at JFK at 5:40 p.m. ET Thursday was diverted back to its origin airport, according to flight tracking site FlightAware.

    Some arriving international flights were diverted to other East Coast airports, including Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, Boston’s Logan International Airport and Washington Dulles International Airport, JFK’s website showed.

    The Port Authority is trying to restore power at Terminal 1 by working around the circuits affected by the overnight fire, according to a Port Authority official with knowledge of the outage.

    If this method of restoring the power to the terminal is not successful, they are prepared to use generator power to get Terminal 1 back online, the Port Authority source added.

    The aircraft ramp around Terminal 1 has been closed and is scheduled to reopen Friday morning, according to a notice posted in a Federal Aviation Administration safety database.

    The FAA referred questions about the incident to the airport operator. The Transportation Security Administration said: “TSA is eagerly awaiting the power situation to be resolved.”

    Passengers on the Air New Zealand flight found themselves on a nearly 16-hour flight from Auckland back to Auckland after ANZ2 turned around because of the disruption at JFK.

    “Diverting to another US port would have meant the aircraft would remain on the ground for several days, impacting a number of other scheduled services and customers,” the airline said in a statement to CNN.

    Airline staff will be on hand to rebook passengers when they arrive back in Auckland.

    “We apologise for the inconvenience and thank our customers for their patience and understanding.”

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  • Schools to close, flights canceled as New Zealand’s largest city braces for Cyclone Gabrielle | CNN

    Schools to close, flights canceled as New Zealand’s largest city braces for Cyclone Gabrielle | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Schools across Auckland will close from Monday as New Zealand’s largest city braces for the arrival of Cyclone Gabrielle, CNN affiliate Radio New Zealand reported Sunday.

    Over 36 schools and universities will shut their doors despite no formal order from the Ministry of Education, RNZ said, while the InterCity bus network will also reduce its services.

    Meanwhile, with Gabrielle closing in, Air New Zealand said it was canceling multiple long-haul international fights on Monday, as well as Tasman and Pacific Island flights, and domestic services in and out of Auckland, Reuters reported.

    In a press conference with local media Sunday, New Zealand’s Prime Minister Chris Hipkins once again called on residents across Auckland to minimize non-essential travel, urging those who could work from home to do so.

    “We do expect severe weather is on the way so please make sure you’re prepared, make sure you have your preparations in place, if you have to stay put for a period of time or if you have to evacuate,” Hipkins told reporters.

    On Saturday, Gabrielle transitioned to a post-tropical cyclone meaning it has lost its tropical system characteristics, however the latest forecasts from New Zealand’s MetService warn the storm still poses a “very high risk of extreme, impactful and unprecedented weather over many regions of the North Island from Sunday to Tuesday.”

    In Northland, a subtropical region on New Zealand’s North Island, a state of emergency was declared Sunday for an initial period of seven days as part of the regional response to Gabrielle, according to a notice from local authorities.

    Northland has experienced just six state of emergency warnings in the last 50 years, the statement added.

    Auckland Emergency Management warned the city was likely to be hit by strong winds on Sunday night, with gusts of up to 140 kph (90 mph) or higher from Monday, Reuters reported.

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  • Australia’s central bank signals more tightening ahead after hiking rates to decade high | CNN Business

    Australia’s central bank signals more tightening ahead after hiking rates to decade high | CNN Business

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    Sydney
    Reuters
     — 

    Australia’s central bank raised its cash rate by 25 basis points to a decade-high of 3.35% on Tuesday and reiterated that further increases would be needed, in a more hawkish policy tilt than many had expected.

    Wrapping up its February policy meeting, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) also dropped previous guidance that it was not on a pre-set path and forecast inflation would only return to the top of its target range of 2-3% by mid-2025.

    “The Board expects that further increases in interest rates will be needed over the months ahead to ensure that inflation returns to target and that this period of high inflation is only temporary,” governor Philip Lowe said in a statement.

    Markets were surprised by the hawkish tone of the RBA which shattered any expectations of an imminent pause to the tightening campaign. The futures market has priced in a peak rate of 3.9%, implying at least two more rate hikes in March and April, compared with 3.75% before the decision.

    The local dollar shot up to $0.6940, extending earlier gains. Three-year government bond yields jumped 15 bps to 3.254% while ten-year yields also surged 15 bps to 3.615%.

    “The surprise was not in the decision, but rather the shift in tone and forward guidance in the Governor’s Statement,” said Gareth Aird, head of Australian economics at CBA, as he updated his call for rates to peak at 3.85% after the decision, compared with 3.35% previously.

    “This change implies that the RBA Board has essentially made up their mind and intend to raise the cash rate further over coming months, if the economic data prints in line with their updated forecasts.”

    Markets had expected a quarter-point move, with some risk of a bigger rise given recent inflation data had surprised on the high side. This was the ninth hike since last May, lifting rates by a total of 325 basis points.

    Lowe said that core inflation had been higher than expected, with the trimmed mean gauge accelerating to 6.9% last quarter from a year ago, above the central bank’s previous forecast of 6.5%.

    Inflation is expected to decline to 4.75% this year and only slow to around 3% by mid-2025, according to the RBA’s latest forecasts.

    The RBA also expects economic growth to average around 1.5% over 2023 and 2024.

    The interest rate increases so far, including Tuesday’s move, will add over A$900 a month in repayments to the average A$500,000 mortgage, according to RateCity, a deadweight for a population that holds A$2 trillion ($1.3 trillion) in home loans.

    Housing prices fell for the ninth straight month in January, with prices in Sydney and Melbourne down about 10% from a year ago.

    There are signs that consumers are finally pulling back on spending as the cost of living surges and rate increases bite. Australian retail sales recorded the biggest drop in more than two years in December.

    The next big test is the December quarter wage growth report later this month, which analysts expect to be robust given the labor market is at its strongest in nearly 50 years.

    “High inflation makes life difficult for people and damages the functioning of the economy. And if high inflation were to become entrenched in people’s expectations, it would be very costly to reduce later,” warned Lowe as he signaled the bank’s intention to extend the tightening cycle.

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  • Gold giant Newmont’s $16.9 billion bid for Australia’s Newcrest clouded by deal doubts | CNN Business

    Gold giant Newmont’s $16.9 billion bid for Australia’s Newcrest clouded by deal doubts | CNN Business

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    Melbourne
    Reuters
     — 

    Top gold producer Newmont

    (NEM)     Corp said it had made a $16.9 billion offer for Australian peer Newcrest

    (NCMGF)     Mining to build a global gold behemoth, although investors and analysts said it undervalued the target amid a leadership change.

    Newcrest is seeking a new boss, with previous chief executive Sandeep Biswas having stepped down in December, while global interest rates are expected to peak this year and turn down, polishing the outlook for gold prices.

    The Australian gold miner said that it was considering the all-share proposal in a filing that was a response to media speculation over the weekend. The initial feedback from shareholders is that they want a higher price, according to a person familiar with Newcrest’s deliberations.

    “A good litmus test for a reasonably-priced deal is one where both seller and buyer feel somewhat aggrieved by selling out too low or by paying too much,” said Simon Mawhinney, chief investment officer at Allan Gray, Newcrest’s largest shareholder with a 7.36% stake. “It’s not clear to me that this kind of symmetry exists with these deal terms.”

    Newcrest shares surged as much as 14.4% to A$25.60 ($17.77), the highest since May 2022, but remained below the implied current offer price of $27.16, suggesting investors were not convinced the deal would pan out. Shares closed 9.3% higher at A$24.53.

    Newmont, which is already the world’s biggest gold producer by market capitalization and by ounces produced, said the combination represented “a powerful value proposition.”

    Newcrest’s operations include its top class Cadia asset in Australia, an expanding footprint in North America and Papua New Guinea, and growth potential in copper, highly prized as key to the energy transition. BHP

    (BBL)     Group offered $6.4 billion for Australian copper miner Oz

    (OZMLF)     Minerals Minerals in December.

    The Newmont proposal is via an agreed scheme of arrangement that would need to be recommended by the Newcrest board and subject to due diligence, various regulatory approvals and a shareholder vote that could stretch out for months.

    The indicative offer implies a 21% premium to Newcrest’s last closing value of A$22.45, materially below the traditional 30% takeover premium, noted analyst Jon Mills of Morningstar, which values Newcrest at about A$31 per share.

    Newcrest shareholders would receive 0.380 Newmont shares for every Newcrest share, giving them a 30% stake in the enlarged miner. It is a 4.7% improvement from a previous 0.363 per share offer that Newcrest already rejected for not providing enough value to shareholders, Newcrest disclosed on Monday.

    If investors don’t back the deal, the board will be under pressure to improve Newcrest’s value, perhaps by breaking out assets like Havieron and Telfer in Australia, or Lihir in Papua New Guinea, said Barrenjoey analyst Dan Morgan.

    Newcrest has been expected to announce a new chief executive this year after Biswas announced his retirement after eight years.

    Sherry Duhe, formerly chief financial officer, who joined Newcrest in February last year, is interim chief executive while a global internal and external search for a replacement is underway.

    Newcrest has been viewed as a target in recent years given its middling performance, but only a handful of buyers are big enough to take it out, said an investment banker who was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

    The all-share nature of the offer meant the timing is more likely to be linked to Newcrest’s leadership vulnerability than a big call on the gold price, but it probably also reflects a constructive view on the precious metal, the banker added.

    Risks are growing for gold to break higher, Morgan Stanley in a note on Jan. 16, noting that its macroeconomists were now forecasting lower rates and a weaker U.S. dollar, in tailwinds for the metal.

    Morgan Stanley is looking towards a bull case of spot gold reaching $2,160 in the fourth quarter, up from $1,866 an ounce.

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  • US, EU, G7 and Australia announce new price cap on Russian petroleum products | CNN Politics

    US, EU, G7 and Australia announce new price cap on Russian petroleum products | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The US and allies are trying to further limit Russia’s ability to make money and finance its war efforts with new price limits on products like gasoline and fuel oil, a senior Treasury official announced Friday – adding to sanctions on Russian energy sales in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

    “Our intent is not to crash the Russian economy,” the official told reporters Friday. “Our intent is to make it impossible for the Kremlin to continue to make the choice of propping up the economy and also paying for their war.”

    The agreement between the US, the G7, the European Union and Australia places a price cap on “seaborne Russian-origin petroleum products,” the US Department of Treasury said. There are two price levels: one applies to “premium-to-crude” petroleum products like diesel, kerosene and gasoline, which will be capped at $100 USD per barrel, and “discount-to-crude” petroleum products like fuel oil, which will be capped at $45 USD per barrel.

    “The thing that we’re focused on is cutting off the revenue,” the official said. “We’re also going after their military industrialized complex and supply chain so they can’t use the money they have to buy the weapons they need. Our approach to this is really to go after the things that are crucial to the Kremlin’s war effort and their ability to prop up their economy.”

    In December, the same group implemented a price cap on crude oil – which the Treasury official said was already impeding Russia’s ability to finance the war. They added Russia had “openly acknowledged” the price cap was hurting the country’s economy. Data released by Russia showed that monthly tax revenues from energy sales declined 46% from the month prior.

    Officials shrugged off reports that, despite numerous sanctions, Russia’s economy is still expected to rebound and may even outpace Germany and Great Britain. The senior Treasury official said economically, the country “doesn’t function any longer like a normal economy.”

    “They’ve shut it down largely, meaning that if you have money of Russia, they’ll let you keep putting money in Russia, but you can’t take money out. They no longer allow foreign capital coming into Russia,” the official said. “They’re needing to spend more money to prop up their economy because they become a closed economy.”

    The reality, the official said, is that Russia’s budget deficit is growing “because the war is costing them more money” because the “bravery of the Ukrainian people” and the “weapons” were a surprise to them.

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  • Former New Zealand rugby player Campbell Johnstone becomes first All Black to come out as gay | CNN

    Former New Zealand rugby player Campbell Johnstone becomes first All Black to come out as gay | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Former New Zealand rugby player Campbell Johnstone became the first All Black to come out publicly as gay, in an interview with TVNZ’s Seven Sharp on Monday.

    Johnstone – who played three Test matches for New Zealand, including two against the British and Irish Lions in 2005 – said he told his friends and family “a long time ago” before making the announcement on the show.

    “If I can be the first All Black that comes out as gay and take away the pressure and stigma surrounding the issue it can actually help other people,” Johnstone said.

    “Then the public will know that there is one in amongst the All Blacks … and it could be one of the final pieces in the puzzle sports-wise that gives everyone closure,” the former Canterbury and Crusaders player added.

    Responding to the announcement, New Zealand Rugby chief executive Mark Robinson praised his former teammate, saying Johnstone’s “strength and visibility will pave the way for others in our game,” in a statement released on Twitter on Monday.

    “Rugby is a sport that is welcoming to everyone and a place where people should feel safe to be who they are. We know that there are people who have not always been comfortable to be who they are in rugby. We want to be clear, no matter who you love, rugby has your back,” Robinson added.

    The 43-year-old Johnstone said he was ready for the spotlight that would be cast upon him, adding: “I am very much happy and very comfortable about myself, so I am very happy about that.”

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  • Search underway for missing radioactive capsule in Western Australia | CNN

    Search underway for missing radioactive capsule in Western Australia | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    Officials have warned the public of the risks in touching a small capsule containing a radioactive substance that was lost during transportation in Western Australia.

    The silver, round capsule, which measures about a quarter of an inch in diameter and is about a third of an inch tall, contains a small quantity of radioactive Caesium-137, a substance used within gauges in mining operations. Australia’s Department of Health has warned of the material’s serious health consequences.

    The capsule left a mine site north of the town of Newman by road on January 12, according to a statement released by Western Australia’s Department of Fire & Emergency Services (DFES) on Saturday.

    It was being sent to the northeastern suburbs of Perth for repairs. The package holding the capsule arrived in Perth on January 16 and was unloaded and kept in a secure radiation store.

    However, when the package was opened for inspection on Wednesday, the gauge was found to be broken apart with screws missing – and the capsule was not there.

    Western Australia police notified DFES and the Hazard Management Agency that evening. A search is underway to find the capsule and safely contain it, according to DFES Country North chief superintendent David Gill.

    “A multi-agency Incident Management Team, comprised of DFES, Department of Health, WA Police and other subject matter experts, are confirming the exact route and stops made during the journey from north of Newman,” he said in a statement on Friday.

    “The start and finish of the transportation journey – the mine site north of Newman and the transport depot in the north-eastern suburbs of Perth – were among the locations searched” on Thursday and Friday, he added. “We are also combing roads and other areas in the search zone.”

    The emergency services warned of a radioactive substance risk in parts of the Pilbara, Midwest Gascoyne, Goldfields-Midlands and Perth Metropolitan regions.

    Exposure to Caesium-137 could cause radiation burns or radiation sickness. However, risk to the general community is relatively low, officials said.

    “If people see the capsule or something that looks similar, stay away from it and keep others away from it too,” said Dr. Andrew Robertson, chief health officer and Radiological Council chair, in a statement on Friday.

    “Do not touch or pick it up. The public is asked to report it immediately by calling 13 DFES (13 33 37),” he added, advising anyone who touches or goes close to the material for a long period of time to seek medical care.

    “If you are very close to the material or touching it, the radiation risk increases immensely and could cause serious damage to your health, including causing radiation burns to the skin,” Robertson said.

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  • New Zealand’s Labour party unanimously endorses Chris Hipkins to succeed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern | CNN

    New Zealand’s Labour party unanimously endorses Chris Hipkins to succeed Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    New Zealand’s Labour party has unanimously endorsed Education Minister Chris Hipkins to succeed current Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern as party leader.

    Hipkins was the only nominee for the leadership position so his endorsement on Sunday was largely a formality.

    At a news conference in Wellington after the decision, Hipkins said, “Earlier today the Labour party caucus, the Labour team of MPs unanimously endorsed me as their new leader and as the next prime minister of New Zealand.”

    “I want to acknowledge the outgoing prime minister, my very good friend Jacinda Ardern. She’s been one of New Zealand’s great prime ministers,” Hipkins added.

    Ardern said she would be stepping down from the country’s top job in a surprise announcement last Thursday, citing exhaustion.

    She is yet to formally resign as prime minister to New Zealand’s Governor General – a step needed to make the decision official.

    Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Ardern said her term would end by February 7, when she expected a new Labour prime minister would be sworn in – though “depending on the process that could be earlier.”

    Hipkins said he expects to be sworn in on Wednesday.

    A career politician who entered Parliament in 2008, Hipkins became a household name while leading New Zealand’s pandemic management as Covid-19 response minister in Ardern’s cabinet. Aside from being education minister, he is also minister for police and the public service, and Leader of the House.

    Speaking to reporters after nominations closed Saturday morning, Hipkins committed to leading the country in a “strong, stable and unified” way but cautioned there were challenges ahead.

    “I acknowledge that at the moment, we’re going through some economic turbulence and we’re going to have to navigate our way through there,” he said.

    Hipkins also told reporters that he is “incredibly optimistic about New Zealand’s future” and is “really looking forward to the job. I am feeling energized and enthusiastic.”

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