Australia news LIVE: Interest rate cut all but guaranteed after inflation slowdown; tsunami evacuations ordered in South America
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6.54am
Why the massive Russian earthquake produced such a weak tsunami
By Katrina Miller
When one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia on Wednesday, tsunami warning centres around the Pacific quickly leapt into action.
They quickly issued advisories for the potential of colossal ocean waves that are often generated by big earthquakes. But later in the morning, the centres began to cancel those warnings as the big waves failed to appear. What happened?
According to Diego Melgar, a geophysicist at the University of Oregon, part of the reason the tsunamis were weaker than anticipated may have to do with the size of the earthquake.
'There's big,' he said. 'And then there's really, really, really big.'
6.51am
Trump in no rush to appoint Canberra ambassador
By Matthew Knott
US President Donald Trump has shown no sign of appointing an ambassador to Canberra despite doing so for more than 50 other countries, fuelling accusations Australia is a low diplomatic priority as Trump weighs decisions on tariff rates and the future of the AUKUS defence pact.
The federal opposition has intensified its criticism of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for not securing a meeting with Trump this week after the president said he planned to increase his baseline tariff rate from 10 per cent to as much as 20 per cent.
The Trump administration has announced ambassadorial nominees for at least 52 countries, including Malta, Tunisia, the Bahamas, Latvia, Namibia and New Zealand.
The US Senate has approved Trump's nominees for ambassadors to China, Japan, Canada, Mexico, France, Israel, Britain, Ireland, Turkey and Panama, allowing those diplomats to take up their posts at embassies in their host countries.
6.49am
What's making news today
By Daniel Lo Surdo
Hello and welcome to the national news live blog. My name is Daniel Lo Surdo, and I'll be helming our live coverage this morning.
Here's what is making news today:
An interest rate is all but assured when the Reserve Bank meets next month, after inflation figures released on Wednesday found the annual rate fell to 2.1 per cent to the June quarter, marking the lowest inflation rate since early 2021. Treasurer Jim Chalmers celebrated the figures, labelling them 'absolutely outstanding'. It comes in a sitting week when Labor is working to progress draft laws that would cap medicine under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at $25, and pass student debt reduction and childcare reform legislation.
New alerts have forced evacuations in South America's Pacific coast as fears of a devastating tsunami for the US and Japan faded on Wednesday after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off a sparsely populated Russian peninsula. Chile raised its warning to the highest level for most of its lengthy Pacific coast hours ago, with mass evacuations underway amid concerns of a tsunami. Warnings in the first hours after the 8.8 magnitude quake triggered immediate evacuations in Japan and Hawaii, while several people in Russia were hurt while rushing to safer ground.
The Australian sharemarket is set to fall on Thursday, after most US stocks retreated following the Federal Reserve's decision to hold its main interest rate steady. The Federal Reserve's decision is expected to frustrate President Donald Trump, who has been angrily lobbying for lower interest rates, but was widely expected on Wall Street. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell pushed back on expectations for a September rate cut, saying inflation was still above the Fed's two per cent target.
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Sydney Morning Herald
31 minutes ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Firing people can't save Trump from the US economy's unflattering reality
In response, a group of statistical agencies that goes by the name The Friends of the Bureau of Labour Statistics released its own, more factual, statement that read: 'This escalates the President's unprecedented attack on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome news,' it said. It's also worth noting that the group statement was issued by William Beach, who was McEntarfer's Trump-appointed predecessor at the bureau. It's hard to overstate what Trump has done. Imagine if Anthony Albanese decided to sack the nation's chief statistician because the latest inflation data was not what the government wanted. There would, rightly, be an outcry. Naturally, the Trump apologists have been out defending the indefensible, ignoring the fact that the bureau has always revised job numbers (up and down), no matter the occupant of the White House. Last year, while Joe Biden was still in office, the bureau revised its jobs figures between January and July down by 340,000. But the single largest downward revision came in March and April 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the number of jobs was cut by almost 925,000. Loading Revisions are part and parcel of what the Bureau of Labour Statistics does. Every month it updates its numbers as it receives more information. The monthly release, plus the revisions, are vital to policymakers (like the Federal Reserve) and investors so they can see how the economy is travelling in as close to real time as possible. Ever since he declared a record crowd at his 2017 inauguration, Trump and reality have been at odds. In the grand scheme of things, crowd size does not really matter. But using a Sharpie to extend the expected landfall of a hurricane, gutting agencies responsible for tracking climate change, and ignoring employment data have very real consequences. Economists and policymakers have, for years, been worried about the statistics coming out of nations where the political leaders meddle with the numbers. In Argentina during the 1990s, the government fired bureaucrats who released less-than-flattering inflation figures and began releasing their own (sound familiar?). Understandably, this made international investors wary and increase their premiums as protection. By 2001, the government was in a full-blown debt crisis and defaulted on $US93 billion of debt. Greece, Turkey, Russia and China have also tried to play fast and loose with statistics over the years. It got to such a point in the case of China that outside economists used electricity consumption or satellite pictures taken at night (to see artificial light) as a de facto measure of GDP because their trust in the official numbers was so low. As financial analyst Ned Davis told The Wall Street Journal, ' Your initial thought is, 'Are we heading toward what you see in Latin America or Turkey, where if the data doesn't look good, you fire someone, and then eventually stop reporting it?'' Just a few days before McEntarfer's sacking, Trump was saying how great the economy was travelling – and demanding the Federal Reserve cut interest rates because it was going so well. Of course, the GDP figures did not show that (growth is slowing while inflation, at 2.7 per cent, is above the Fed's 2 per cent target rate). But Trump couldn't admit that, so he told his own story. Loading Around the same time, the president claimed that his government had cut pharmaceutical prices by '1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 per cent. I don't mean 50 per cent, I mean 1400, 1500 per cent'. And he's the one who thought the Bureau of Labour Statistics was making up numbers. The problem with making up your own numbers, or installing people who will make the numbers show what you want, is that they will be at odds with the lived experience of voters. Just as Biden struggled to convince Americans that the cost of living was getting better while they could see the price of everyday essentials going up, saying the economy is great to people lining up for unemployment benefits has a short shelf life. There's an adage used by economists to describe the models they use to understand the economy: Put crap in, and you get crap out.
AU Financial Review
31 minutes ago
- AU Financial Review
Before the Bell: ASX to fall, Apple leaps, oil slides
Australian shares are set to rise. Wall Street advanced helped by a near 6 per cent surge in Apple on reports its eased tensions with the Trump administration. The White House said the iPhone maker will commit to investing an additional $US100 billion into its US business. In addition, there were reports iPhones will avert new tariffs on imports from India. Apple was 5.8 per cent higher near 2.55pm, lifting its market cap back above the $US3 trillion mark. President Donald Trump said he's going to increase tariffs on India to 50 per cent, from 25 per cent because India refuses to stop buying oil from Russia. India says it needs the oil for its national security. Market highlights ASX 200 futures are pointing down 32 points or 0.4 per cent to 8774. All US prices near 2.55pm New York time. Today's agenda AMP and Light & Wonder are set to report results on Thursday. The June trade balance is scheduled for 11.30am. Across the Tasman, the RBNZ's third-quarter Survey of Expectations will be most closely followed for its inflation expectations components. Overseas, the Bank of England is widely expected to cut its key rate by 25 basis points. China is set to release its July trade balance. Top stories ASX under fire after 'ridiculous' $400m TPG mix-up | A major investor has slammed the 'continuing saga' within the exchange operator after it confused the telco with a private equity firm. | A spokesperson for India's Ministry of External Affairs called the US president's announcement 'unfair, unjustified and unreasonable'. | Mining unions leapt on the proposal as a reason workers should organise, but Rio Tinto says long sick leave puts pressure on those who stay on the job.
The Age
31 minutes ago
- The Age
Firing people can't save Trump from the US economy's unflattering reality
In response, a group of statistical agencies that goes by the name The Friends of the Bureau of Labour Statistics released its own, more factual, statement that read: 'This escalates the President's unprecedented attack on the independence and integrity of the federal statistical system. The President seeks to blame someone for unwelcome news,' it said. It's also worth noting that the group statement was issued by William Beach, who was McEntarfer's Trump-appointed predecessor at the bureau. It's hard to overstate what Trump has done. Imagine if Anthony Albanese decided to sack the nation's chief statistician because the latest inflation data was not what the government wanted. There would, rightly, be an outcry. Naturally, the Trump apologists have been out defending the indefensible, ignoring the fact that the bureau has always revised job numbers (up and down), no matter the occupant of the White House. Last year, while Joe Biden was still in office, the bureau revised its jobs figures between January and July down by 340,000. But the single largest downward revision came in March and April 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the number of jobs was cut by almost 925,000. Loading Revisions are part and parcel of what the Bureau of Labour Statistics does. Every month it updates its numbers as it receives more information. The monthly release, plus the revisions, are vital to policymakers (like the Federal Reserve) and investors so they can see how the economy is travelling in as close to real time as possible. Ever since he declared a record crowd at his 2017 inauguration, Trump and reality have been at odds. In the grand scheme of things, crowd size does not really matter. But using a Sharpie to extend the expected landfall of a hurricane, gutting agencies responsible for tracking climate change, and ignoring employment data have very real consequences. Economists and policymakers have, for years, been worried about the statistics coming out of nations where the political leaders meddle with the numbers. In Argentina during the 1990s, the government fired bureaucrats who released less-than-flattering inflation figures and began releasing their own (sound familiar?). Understandably, this made international investors wary and increase their premiums as protection. By 2001, the government was in a full-blown debt crisis and defaulted on $US93 billion of debt. Greece, Turkey, Russia and China have also tried to play fast and loose with statistics over the years. It got to such a point in the case of China that outside economists used electricity consumption or satellite pictures taken at night (to see artificial light) as a de facto measure of GDP because their trust in the official numbers was so low. As financial analyst Ned Davis told The Wall Street Journal, ' Your initial thought is, 'Are we heading toward what you see in Latin America or Turkey, where if the data doesn't look good, you fire someone, and then eventually stop reporting it?'' Just a few days before McEntarfer's sacking, Trump was saying how great the economy was travelling – and demanding the Federal Reserve cut interest rates because it was going so well. Of course, the GDP figures did not show that (growth is slowing while inflation, at 2.7 per cent, is above the Fed's 2 per cent target rate). But Trump couldn't admit that, so he told his own story. Loading Around the same time, the president claimed that his government had cut pharmaceutical prices by '1200, 1300, 1400, 1500 per cent. I don't mean 50 per cent, I mean 1400, 1500 per cent'. And he's the one who thought the Bureau of Labour Statistics was making up numbers. The problem with making up your own numbers, or installing people who will make the numbers show what you want, is that they will be at odds with the lived experience of voters. Just as Biden struggled to convince Americans that the cost of living was getting better while they could see the price of everyday essentials going up, saying the economy is great to people lining up for unemployment benefits has a short shelf life. There's an adage used by economists to describe the models they use to understand the economy: Put crap in, and you get crap out.
