Albanese hoping to secure meeting with Trump
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is hoping to secure a private meeting with US President Donald Trump at the G7 Summit.
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SBS Australia
an hour ago
- SBS Australia
The US president announces a new trade deal with China
TRANSCRIPT The US president announces a new trade deal with China Calls for more sanctions against Israel A rising AFL star to return from injury tonight The United States and China have signed a new trade deal, in which China will supply minerals in exchange for its students being allowed to stay in American universities. The announcement was made by President Donald Trump on Truth Social, after two-day talks in London in which the parties reached an in-principle agreement on a trade framework to resolve disputes. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt says more details will be released soon. "On behalf of the United States, and in meeting with their Chinese counterparts, the President is talking to them about the details of it now. But what the President heard, he liked. China has agreed to open their markets to the United States, separately from this deal. And when it comes to this deal, we're going back to the terms that were agreed upon in Geneva for the release of some of those critical minerals and magnets from China to the United States. We have agreed to fully comply with the Geneva agreement as well." Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping also met last week. The United States Defence agency the Pentagon is reviewing a defence pact with Australia and the United Kingdom. The AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine deal is being assessed to ensure it meets 'America First' criteria. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is preparing to meet with US President Donald Trump, with Mr Trump previously giving reassurances the 386 billion-dollar deal was secure. Labor backbencher MP Ed Husic is seizing on the announcement of sanctions against two Israeli ministers to urge the government to go further. Along with five other countries, including the United Kingdom, the government has put in place sanctions against Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and its Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich. Foreign Minister Penny Wong says the two men have committed grave abuses of Palestinian human rights, and support extremist violence. The United States has criticised the sanctions. But Mr Husic, who has continually called for tougher action against Israel, says the stakes are too high for the government to stop at this point. "It shouldn't be seen as the end point. We'll take into account what actions have to be taken next, but, at this point, welcome this announcement. But again, I think we're going to need to do more, because there are, as I said, too many innocent civilians that have been impacted." Former Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, who has defected to Labor, has accused her former party of racism. She also says the party ignored several of her claims, including disputed allegations of an assault by a party member in Perth. She also alleged the Greens failed her as a First Nations MP. The Greens have disputed Ms Cox's claims. When asked about the matter, Greens Treasury spokesperson Nick McKim says it's now up to Labor decide what to do next. "All of the allegations that were put to us, we have referred to independent investigation or appropriate authorities, where those investigations are now and how they respond to going forward is a matter of Albanese and the Labor party." Funerals have been held in southern Gaza after at least 14 Palestinians were killed while attempting to collect aid in Rafah. Among them was 16-year-old Ghazal Eyad, one of thousands braving deadly conditions just to survive. Her older sister Maria Eyad describes how her sister had gone to find food for her family, after days without supplies. "Ghazal went to get food for her little sisters. Her sister was injured the day before, the second day of Eid. They don't have food. Who will feed them and who will give them water? So she and her mother went and said, 'We will go get food for the children, we don't find anything to eat.' Ghazal went to her fate." The incident comes as the Palestinian death toll in the war surpasses 55,000, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The United Nations says aid delivery remains paralysed by Israeli restrictions, looting, and chaos around US-backed distribution sites. Israel maintains it's targeting militants, and accuses Hamas of operating within civilian areas. The Los Angeles Police Department ((LAPD)) says officers have conducted mass arrests, after a curfew was implemented in the city. In a statement, the LAPD says several groups of protesters are still gathered in a designated curfew zone, prompting them to conduct mass arrests. The city's mayor, Karen Bass, who issued the curfew, has urged the Trump administration to end the immigration raids. Speaking earlier, United States President Donald Trump again insisted it's necessary to keep National Guard troops inside the city. "A very simple rule of engagement. If they're dangerous, if they're throwing concrete or bricks, if they're spitting in the face of the police or whoever's in front of them, if they're punching people, if they're doing all of the things that you see done for the last three nights, that I would say is engagement. We need to keep our city... I want to save Los Angeles. And (Governor Gavin) Newsom is totally incompetent. He's not going to... Look at the fires he had." In the AFL, Western Bulldogs star Sam Darcy will return to the field in tonight's clash with St Kilda in Melbourne. Last time the Bulldogs played St Kilda, eight weeks ago, Darcy hurt his knee early in the game, and it was immediately thought his season was over. But the 21-year-old has managed to avoid surgery, suffering only an impaction fracture and associated ligament damage. The Bulldogs will be looking to bounce back agsinst St Kilda, after losing to Hawthorn last week.
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
'More Pounds Please': Nuclear fuel buyers call up uranium miners as shortages loom
Uranium miners have enjoyed catalysts in recent weeks, led by Donald Trump's exec orders But the real story could be contracting as AI demand grows and China looks to become world's top nuclear nation Aura Energy boss Andrew Grove says Mauritania developer is well placed to meet the market There have been catalysts aplenty for the uranium and nuclear markets in recent weeks. On May 23, US President Donald Trump signed four executive orders around nuclear energy, with the main aim being to 'expedite and promote the production and operation of nuclear energy'. Other objectives of the orders were around the deployment of advanced nuclear technologies to support national security objectives, including powering artificial intelligence computing infrastructure and national security installations, the streamlining of nuclear reactor technology, and the reform of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). The executive orders have been described as the most aggressive US policy on nuclear energy in decades. Another interesting recent development has been the continued emergence of big technology companies as serious nuclear customers. Last week, Facebook owner Meta announced it had signed a 20-year agreement to buy nuclear power from US-based Constellation Energy from 2027. 'This transaction also follows similar nuclear-based power purchase agreements struck by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc,' Canaccord Genuity analyst James Bullen said. 'While potentially some way off, the larger miners did indicate that big tech was showing interest in direct offtake agreements to secure their nuclear future.' Nuclear gabfest wraps Last week, the World Nuclear Fuel Market conference was held in Sydney, the first time in its 51-year history it had been held in Australia. Aura Energy (ASX:AEE) managing director Andrew Grove was there and told Stockhead the company had a good spread of meetings with utilities. Both Grove and Bullen said the Chinese were increasingly active, with Canaccord forecasting Chinese nuclear capacity to overtake the US by 2030. 'While Western utilities and producers referred, with tongue in cheek, to a game of contracting 'chicken' in one of the more entertaining panels, CNNC was clearly batting its eyelids to the producers and seeking 'more pounds please',' Bullen said. Bullen noted that China's CGN Mining last week entered into a supply contract with its controlling shareholder CGNPC with a 30% fixed-price component of US$94 per pound with the remainder to be purchased at spot. 'While this is a related party transaction, it sets, in our view, a clear benchmark in a Chinese market where electricity prices are set by the National Development and Reform Commission.' On the flipside, Grove said US utilities weren't as aggressive – yet. 'You get the feeling that they've got enough near-term inventory, that they're not too panicked,' he said. 'Plus, they've spent the last 15 or 20 years where they can go and buy uranium whenever they feel like it so there hasn't been a lot of pressure on them to go and buy it. 'China's very aggressive in terms of running around the world trying to lock up supply, so I guess the US market has to counter that somehow.' Grove said Aura was getting close to signing a contract with a major US utility. Diversity becoming important Grove said utilities, particularly US utilities, recognised that they needed diversity of supply. 'There was a pretty strong message from the utilities that they want to support new supply, because there's some risk around stuff coming into Russia and some risk around stuff coming out of Kazakhstan,' he said. 'And for the big ones, they're starting to engage with greenfields like us and then probably one of them will give us a smaller contract that doesn't put their fuel supply at risk but helps facilitate new production coming on board.' Bullen echoed those comments, saying that utilities and traders indicated a willingness to not only contract, but also pre-pay. 'In short, they increasingly recognise the challenges associated with financing developments and, for the right projects, will use their balance sheet and credit rating to support them,' he said. Bullen noted that the term price of US$80/lb had incentivised restarts but not the greenfield developments which are required to meet the projected 1.3 billion pounds of demand between now and 2045. 'With a busy contracting period expected in the 2H, we remain highly constructive on medium-term uranium pricing,' he said. Tiris progressing Aura is fortunate in that it doesn't need to rely on a higher uranium price to push the button on its Tiris project in Mauritania. The project is expected to produce 1.8Mlb per annum of uranium over 25 years at forecast all-in sustaining costs of US$35.70/lb. 'It's got quite strong cashflows to support any level of debt at much lower prices than the spot prices today,' Grove said. Aura has been working hard on locking in the funding for the US$230 million development, with the help of advisors Orimco and Macquarie. 'We're working towards a debt funding of 50-60%, which is about US$260 million, from a sovereign Western development bank,' Grove said. 'There's also an indicative term sheet from a private equity group, which could supply something around the same sort of quantum and then we're looking at a number of strategic investors which could buy a small portion of the asset and help augment the debt funding, plus some other strategic investors that could fund the whole project.' Grove said the development bank could make a board approval in September. 'Everyone else has to meet that timeline, otherwise they're going to miss out,' he said. 'We're looking at pulling it all together around the September mark at this stage … so in the background, we're getting everything technically ready to be able to pull the trigger on execution. 'We're trying to position ourselves for 2027 production, so we're not deferring because of the price – we're working hard to deliver the funding and then we'll commit to the development.'
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Musk regrets some of his Trump criticisms, says they 'went too far'
Elon Musk, the world's richest person and Donald Trump's former advisor, said Wednesday he regretted some of his recent criticisms of the US president, after the pair's public falling-out last week. "I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far," Musk wrote on his social media platform X, in a message that was received favorably by the White House. Musk's expression of regret came just days after Trump threatened the tech billionaire with "serious consequences" if he sought to punish Republicans who vote for a controversial spending bill. Their blistering break-up -- largely carried out on social media before a riveted public since Thursday last week -- was ignited by Musk's harsh criticism of Trump's so-called "big, beautiful" spending bill, which is currently before Congress. Some lawmakers who were against the bill had called on Musk -- one of the Republican Party's biggest financial backers in last year's presidential election -- to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the legislation. "He'll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that," Trump, who also branded Musk "disrespectful," told NBC News on Saturday, without specifying what those consequences would be. Trump also said he had "no" desire to repair his relationship with the South African-born Tesla and SpaceX chief, and that he has "no intention of speaking to him." But after Musk's expression of regret, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was "appreciative," adding that "no efforts" had been made on a threat by Trump to end some of Musk's government contracts. "The president acknowledged the statement that Elon put out this morning, and he is appreciative of it," Leavitt said. According to the New York Times, Musk's message followed a phone call to Trump late on Monday night. Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susan Wiles had also been working with Musk on how to broker a truce with Trump, the report said. - 'Wish him well' - In his post on Wednesday, Musk did not specify which of his criticisms of Trump had gone "too far." The former allies had seemed to have cut ties amicably about two weeks ago, with Trump giving Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But their relationship cracked within days, with Musk describing the spending bill as an "abomination" that, if passed by Congress, could define Trump's second term in office. Trump hit back at Musk's comments in an Oval Office diatribe and from there the row detonated, leaving Washington stunned. Trump later said on his Truth Social platform that cutting billions of dollars in subsidies and contracts to Musk's companies would be the "easiest way" to save the US government money. US media have put the value of the contracts at $18 billion. With real political and economic risks to their falling out, both already appeared to inch back from the brink on Friday, with Trump telling reporters "I just wish him well," and Musk responding on X: "Likewise." Trump had spoken to NBC on Saturday after Musk deleted one of the explosive allegations he had made during their fallout, linking the president with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking. bur-arp/aha
