World

International affairs, events, and conflicts

World
Musk moots selling anything that can be privatised
What do you give the man who has everything? The opportunity to sell it. Not content with being the world’s richest man Elon Musk would like to privatise any American public businesses and assets that can be sold. As a starting point the South African-born billionaire appointed to make the United States Government more efficient has recommended that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and passenger rail service Amtrak be offloaded to the private sector. Speaking virtually at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom conference, Musk said “we should privatise anything that can be privatised”. Referring to Amtrak, he also said it was “kind of embarrassing” that other countries had “way better passenger rail than we do”. He compared Amtrak’s service unfavourably with bullet trains in China, saying the American passenger rail service established in 1971 was “a sad situation.” “It’s like if you’re coming from another country, please don’t use our national rail. It can leave you with a very bad impression of America,” Musk was quoted in a CNN news report as saying. “I think we should privatise anything that can be privatised, just so you’ve got a feedback loop for improvement, is what happens when something’s privati
World
Largest iceberg in the world runs aground
The biggest iceberg in the world has run aground on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. Named A23a, weighing nearly a trillion metric tonnes, the mega-berg has been drifting around the Southern Ocean since 2020, after it was first calved from Antarctica’s Filchner Ice Shelf in 1986 before resting on the Weddell Sea ocean floor for over three decades. In a statement released on Wednesday, the British Antarctic Survey confirmed it had now come to a stop on the island, which is a British Overseas Territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. In August 2024 A23a measured an area of 3,672 square kilometres or twice the size of Greater London. “If the iceberg stays grounded, we don’t expect it to significantly affect the local wildlife of South Georgia,” said Andrew Meijers, an oceanographer at the BAS. “Commercial fisheries have been disrupted in the past however, and as the berg breaks into smaller pieces, this might make fishing operations in the area both more difficult and potentially hazardous.” Related content World’s largest iceberg could block key penguin feeding grounds
World
Health fears: Avian influenza H5N1 is nearing Australia
The deadly avian influenza H5N1 is sweeping the globe and nearing Australia. Outbreaks of the virus were discovered by French scientists last on Possesion Island in the Crozet archipelago, on 17 October, and Kerguelen Island on 11 November. Kerguelen is only 440km from Australia’s remote Heard and McDonald Island and 4,000km southwest of Perth. It is unknown how the virus got to the French Southern and Antarctic Territories. A new study published on BioRxiv suggested the virus was carried from South Georgia Island, which is in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America. Australian scientists came up with three potential scenarios for H5N1 infiltrating the country in 2023. University of Melbourne microbiologist, Michelle Wille said this previous work suggested that a northern route was most likely but now there are questions around seabirds cruising the southern ocean could carry the virus to Australia. "Now we need to think about this Antarctic route, or subantarctic route," she told ABC News. "We're in totally new territory here … there's many possible scenarios here. “Collectively we need to sit down and work this out.”
World
Thousands of firefighters deployed to wildfires in Japan
Hundreds of people have been forced to evacuate as Japan faces its worst wildfire in decades. Roughly 4,600 people remain under government-issued evacuation orders, as the fire continues to expand the north-eastern city of Ofunato, in the Iwate Prefecture, and more than 2100 hectares burnt. More than 1,200 have evacuated to shelters and around 2,000 have left to stay with friends or family. The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said at least 84 homes had been damaged and one person killed. Wildfires frequently occur in Japan between January and May, when the air is drier, but they tend to be much smaller in size than the current blaze. Conditions were unusually dry leading up to this event as Ofunato received only 2.5 millimetres of rain last month, the lowest monthly total for February in a record going back to 1964. Strong winds that fanned the flames and steep terrain that challenged containment efforts also contributed to this fire’s growth, experts told news outlets. More than 2000 self-defence force troops and firefighters have already deployed to fight the flames, but calls continue for more. "Although it is inevitable that the fire will spread to some extent, we will take all possible measures to ens
World
Decline in Christianity in the US is stabilising
While the amount of Americans who identify as Christian has lowered by nearly 10% over the last 10 years, the decline is beginning to level off. Pew Research Center recently conducted The Religious Landscape Study where they found 62% of Americans in 2023-24 identified as Christian compared to 71% in 2014 and 78% in 2007 when they started collecting data. Despite this, the number of Christians in America has remained relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%. "If you look to the long term, it's a story of decline in American religion. But it's a completely different story if you look at the short term, which is a story of stability over the last four or five years,” Pew Research senior associate director of research, Gregory Smith, told the New York Times.Credit: Pew Research CenterThe denominations that have seen the sharpest drops are Protestants and Catholics. The dip in Christians is coupled with a rise in Americans identifying with other religions. In 2014, the amount of Americans who identified with non-Christian religions sat at 5.9% and rose to 7.1% in 2023-24. The amount of Americans who don’t identify with any religion is 29%. The report also found that younger Americans aged between 18 to 24 are

World
PNG not told about Chinese drone in Torres Strait
Papua New Guinea’s government has said it was not told about a large drone believed to belong to China that flew into its airspace last month. The drone was sighted near Mabuduan, a village on Papua New Guinea’s southern coast, at night on 11 February. A Chinese navy vessel also sailed through the Torres Strait that day. “It doesn't matter which country it is, if they are entering into our sovereign territory you would expect the courtesy of them telling us what they are doing,” said Papua New Guinea’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko. Tkatchenko said China’s government did not disclose drone activity around Papua New Guinea. China’s ambassador briefed Papua New Guinea’s officials shortly before the Chinese Jiangkai-class frigate Hengyang entered the country’s waters, according to Tkatchenko, though only on the same day Australia contacted Papua New Guinea about the issue. The drone flew around six kilometres inland from Mabuduan while the Hengyang passed through Torres Strait. The Hengyang then joined two other Chinese vessels, with the three ships conducting live fire drills in the Tasman Sea around 10 days later. A Chinese military aircraft also released flares in front of an Australian Air Force jet in the
World
Trump attacks Zelenskyy over peace deal statement
United States President Donald Trump continued his verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday (Tuesday AEDT), as European leaders tried to negotiate a deal to stop the fighting in the former Soviet state. Trump criticised Zelenskyy for saying a deal to end the war between Ukraine and Russia “is still very, very far away”. The Ukrainian leader made his comments to reporters in London where he had been attending a summit with other European leaders. The summit was aimed at hatching out a plan to present to the U.S. to end the war, which began with a Russian invasion in 2022. This followed angry scenes in the Oval Office on Friday as Trump and his deputy J.D. Vance chastised Zelenskyy for not falling into line with their plans to end the conflict, which has killed more than one million people. The Trump administration has also stopped financing new weapons sales to Ukraine and is considering freezing weapons shipments from U.S. stockpiles, current and former U.S. officials were quoted in a Wall Street Journal article as saying. In a post on his Truth Social network, the U.S. President said: “This is the worst statement that could have been made by Zelenskyy, and America will not put up with it
World
Thousands evacuated in Japan's worst wildfire in decades
Japan has asked around 4,600 people to evacuate as the country’s largest wildfire in more than thirty years rages near the northern city of Ofunato. The fire has spread across 2,100 hectares. One person has been confirmed dead, and at least 84 homes have been damaged. “We're still examining the size of the affected area, but it is the biggest since the 1992 wildfire,” said a spokesperson for Japan’s Fire and Disaster Management Agency. A 1992 wildfire in Kushiro, Hokkaido burned 1,030 hectares. The fire began on Wednesday, and has grown by around 400 hectares since Saturday. Its cause is under investigation by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency. Japan’s government gave evacuation orders to 4,600 residents near Ofunato. Around 2,000 left the area, with an additional 1,200 in shelters over the weekend. Almost 1,700 firefighters have been deployed from across Japan to combat the wildfire. Ofunato is located on Honshu’s northeastern coast, around 500 kilometres north of Tokyo. The town of 35,000 saw record low levels of rain in February, at just 2.5 millimetres. Its previous February low was 4.4mm, set in 1967. Two smaller wildfires also continue to rage in Japan. In Yamanashi Prefecture, west of Tokyo, a
World
For first time in 9 years, South Korea's birthrate rises
South Korea's birthrate has risen for the first time in nine years, with the fertility rate increasing from 0.72 in 2023 to 0.75 in 2024. This slight uptick is attributed to a surge in marriages, which jumped by 14.9% in 2024, the largest increase since records began in 1970. “There was a change in social value, with more positive views about marriage and childbirth,” Park Hyun-jung, an official at Statistics Korea, told a news briefing. “It is difficult to measure how much each factor contributed to the rise in new births, but they themselves had an impact on each other too,” Park said. Government policies aimed at encouraging young people to get married and have children, along with a shift in social values towards more positive views on marriage and childbirth, have contributed to this change. Despite this improvement, South Korea's fertility rate remains the lowest in the world and far below the replacement level of 2.1. The economic implications of South Korea's low birth rate are significant. A declining population can lead to a shrinking workforce, which in turn can slow economic growth and increase the burden on social welfare systems. The government has implemented various measures to address this issue,