March
Tariffs will bring ‘nothing but pain’ to rural America, farmers say
Farmers expressed particular concern about the impact of retaliatory tariffs, saying they will restrict their access to some of the US’s most important export markets.
January
When did Sydney’s beaches start looking like campgrounds?
Call me an old hippie, but I still believed that respect for our hallowed coastline extended beyond not littering to keeping visual pollution to a minimum as well.
December 2024
Australian-based bishop among Pope’s new cardinal picks
At 44 years of age, Mykola Bychokthe, head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Melbourne, is also the youngest cardinal.
November 2024
Craving copper? $502m miner Marimaca preps ASX listing
Sources said CEO Hayden Locke has been encouraged by TSX-listed $C7.5 billion Capstone Copper’s ASX listing earlier this year and sees it as a template for Marimaca.
October 2024
Pilbara Minerals cuts lithium output, suspends plant
The miner is scaling back to endure the lithium price slump, cutting annual output and icing operations at its Ngungaju facility.
September 2024
Peru’s Fujimori, divisive head of a political dynasty, dies age 86
During his decade in power, he revived the economy and crushed two leftist insurgencies. But he was forced out in a corruption scandal and later imprisoned.
August 2024
Strike at BHP-owned mine ends as workers win $48,000 bonus
BHP had previously offered a $US28,900 bonus per worker, compared with the union’s demand of 1 per cent of shareholder dividends from the mine.
Strike hits BHP’s biggest copper mine
Workers walked off the job at the Escondida mine in Chile that produces about 5 per cent of the world’s mined copper.
Bad news for Australia: China’s steel crisis is set to deepen
Prices are tumbling, profits are dwindling, and there’s little relief on offer from a government focused on retooling China’s economy for the long term.
Albemarle sounds warning on critical minerals processing
The US-based firm’s decision to reduce output from its lithium hydroxide plant and write down much of its investment demonstrates the flaws in Australia’s plan for greater domestic processing of critical minerals.
July 2024
Protests erupt in Venezuela as nations denounce election result
The US and countries around the world denounced the official results of Sunday’s vote, which did not appear to match statistical estimates based on partial counts.
CSL wins global avian flu vaccine contracts
Australian pharmaceutical giant CSL is to supply up to 45 million shots of its avian flu vaccine to Europe and the US as health authorities prepare for possible human infection from the dangerous H5 strain.
June 2024
History will judge the new era of US protectionism harshly
The unseemly contest by Joe Biden and Donald Trump to outdo each other in trade protectionism will make the world become less prosperous and more unpredictable.
May 2024
Why BHP’s pursuit of hot copper went cold
The red metal is the new black. A rebuffed BHP has gone back to the drawing board to plot its next move after Anglo American rejected its request for more time.
South African politics complicates BHP’s Anglo American discussions
As they try to seal a $75 billion deal on the same day as the South African election, the two miners remain split on the costs Pretoria will impose on any deal.
BHP gets green light for improved Anglo bid
Two prominent Australian investors say they support BHP making an improved bid for Anglo American so long as discipline is not completely abandoned.
April 2024
Chinese general uses naval gathering to restate hard line on Taiwan
‘We do not provoke trouble, but we will never flinch in face of provocation,’ said the vice chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Military Commission.
March 2024
Blast hits Australian UN observer patrolling in Lebanon
Israel denied responsibility for the shell that exploded, injuring the UN observers and their interpreter, who were patrolling the southern Lebanese border.
In WA, a lesson in the tough reality of processing lithium
Albemarle’s emerging plant is a living example that reality is much harder than Australia’s rhetoric about more downstream processing in lithium hydroxide.
US eyes ‘substantial’ lithium imports from Chile
Janet Yellen travelled to Chile to strengthen ties with an ally rich in a metal that’s essential to the Biden administration’s electric vehicle vision.