Reacting to Israeli strikes on Gaza, Clémence Lagouardat, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Coordinator in Gaza, said:
“It is indefensible that Israel has breached the ceasefire agreement by carrying out airstrikes across the Gaza Strip, killing over 300 people and injuring hundreds. The ongoing targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure cannot be justified under any circumstances.
“The ceasefire glimmer of hope should have been protected for the two million people trying to survive in terrible conditions across Gaza and for the remaining Israeli hostages.
“Israeli authorities have also ordered new evacuations across Gaza forcing civilians—who have already been displaced multiple times—to flee again with no safe place to go to. These forced displacement orders are violating international law.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. Since the start of the month, which was also the beginning of Ramadan, Israel placed Gaza under a full siege, cutting off food, fuel and all humanitarian aid. One week ago, it cut electricity to Gaza’s main operational desalination plant that supplied clean water to around 500,000 people. Meanwhile, Gaza’s already collapsing medical system is struggling to absorb the rising number of casualties. Hospitals are low on supplies and ambulances are unable to reach the wounded.
“This crisis persists due to the international community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. This must end. International law is not optional, nor is it selective—it exists to protect all civilians, everywhere, and must be upheld universally.
“All parties must now work to restore a permanent and sustainable ceasefire for all Palestinians and Israelis.”
Preventable diseases are sweeping the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Cholera cases increased by 326, Mpox by 269, and measles by 95 people in North Kivu alone, during the last week of February, according to Oxfam’s partners on the ground.
In January, new cases of cholera infections in the country more than doubled to over 3,850, and 67 people died, which is three times more deaths than the previous month, Oxfam calculates based on WHO data.
Ongoing violence and USAID funding suspension is accelerating the collapse of DRC’s fragile health system, leaving millions defenseless against preventable diseases like cholera.
Since the start of the conflict this year, DRC has faced major setbacks in controlling cholera and Mpox. The country lacks testing centers and functional hospitals. The destruction of displacement camps during the violence, including vital water and sanitation infrastructure, is making the situation worse.
“This is turning into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe. People are drinking water straight from contaminated rivers and springs because water tanks and sanitation facilities have been destroyed. When you combine this with a collapsed health system, cholera is spreading like wildfire,” said Oxfam DRC Country Director, Dr Manenji Mangundu.
“Imagine a hospital without supplies, people drinking untreated water, and patients without much money still being asked to pay for their care. It’s a disaster.” he added.
The suspension of USAID-funded programs in the DRC is already having devastating consequences for vulnerable communities. These abrupt cuts are an immediate threat to the lives of 7.8 million internally displaced people (IDPs) who are already struggling for food, water and shelter. The worst-affected areas include Kirotshe and the city of Goma, where displaced families in overcrowded conditions have little to no access to clean water. More than 70 health facilities and testing centers in North Kivu have been completely destroyed. Those that are running are unable to cope with the multiple outbreaks of preventable diseases.
“Our hospital was 100 percent dependent on humanitarian support,” said Kamara Wabomundu, staff member of the CCLK/Bulimba Health Zone Central Office, one of Oxfam partners. “When our funding was cut, everything collapsed—we had no backup plan. Neither the hospitals nor the communities were prepared. We are asking people to pay for care when they can’t even afford their next meal,” added Kamara.
“USAID was the leading donor in DRC and most aid agencies here relied on its funding to provide life-saving assistance. The international community needs to understand that the systems are rapidly collapsing in DRC. Every moment of inaction means more lives are being lost that could be saved,” added Dr Mangundu
The closure of banks and microfinance institutions has made the situation even worse, paralyzing the distribution of emergency aid through cash transfers. The shutdown of Goma and Kavumu airports has also driven up food prices, making them too expensive for millions of people.
/ENDS
According to theWorld Health Organization (WHO)from January 1 to 26, 2025, 3,853 cases of cholera infections and 67 deaths were confirmed which represents a 112 percent increase from the previous month in infection rates as well as a 235 percent increase in deaths in DRC. Data on February infections and deaths comes from Oxfam partners working in DRC.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is the leading humanitarian donor in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Last year’s report indicates that it provided over $838 million in 2024 alone, including $414 million specifically for humanitarian needs resulting from the ongoing conflict and displacement.
According to the UN 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan,there are 7.8 million Internally Displaced People (IDP) in DRC — among the world’s highest displacement figures.
In the early hours of March 18, Israeli forces attacked multiple areas in the Gaza Strip, killing hundreds of people, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. These attacks come nearly two months after the ceasefire was announced on January 19.
Following the attacks, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams received mass casualties at Nasser and Al-Aqsa hospitals, the MSF field hospital, and MSF’s Attar clinic.
“We received many bodies and body parts, most of them children and women,” said Dr. Mohammed Qishta of Nasser Hospital. “The bodies were everywhere in the emergency room, with complete confusion.”
Claire Magone, general director of MSF France, gave the following statement today:
“We are horrified by the attacks launched by Israel today on the people of Gaza, shattering the nearly two-month-old ceasefire. Out of the hundreds killed, according to the Ministry of Health, MSF received 75 dead on arrival and scores of wounded in just three of the facilities we support.
“Our staff were completely taken by surprise and found themselves once again having to deal with influxes of mass casualties, many of whom were children.
Palestinians in Gaza will simply not be able to withstand this, neither physically nor mentally. Their hopes of recovering at least part of their previous lives are being shattered.
Claire Magone, general director of MSF France
“In line with the tactics that the Israeli authorities have applied since October 2023, they have once again chosen to collectively punish the people of Gaza—with the explicit approval of their closest ally, the United States—striking with an intensity not seen since the early stages of the war. For over 15 months before the ceasefire, people in Gaza were indiscriminately killed, mutilated, wounded, and displaced.
“Israeli forces undertaking these latest ruthless attacks and evacuation orders make us fear that a new phase of military operations in Gaza is about to begin. Palestinians in Gaza will simply not be able to withstand this, neither physically nor mentally. Their hopes of recovering at least part of their previous lives are being shattered.
Voice notes from Gaza: “We received many bodies and body parts”
“Since the ceasefire came into effect on January 19, people have been struggling to restore the basics of their day-to-day lives after a drawn out, devastating military campaign, which has annihilated the very fabric of society in Gaza. Israel has once again cut access to humanitarian aid and basic goods.
“MSF calls for the ceasefire to be immediately restored and for Israel to not restart its campaign of destruction and the nightmarish, massive bombing on the people of Gaza. MSF also calls for the blockade to be lifted, and for people to regain unrestricted access to basic supplies and aid. Injured people and patients requiring urgent medical care should be allowed to seek care outside of Gaza, provided their right to a safe and dignified return is granted.”
Headline: Spend Your FEMA Wildfire Recovery Funds Wisely
Spend Your FEMA Wildfire Recovery Funds Wisely
LOS ANGELES – Remember to use your FEMA assistance funds only for approved disaster-related expenses
FEMA’s notification letter will specify the appropriate uses for your disaster assistance
Spending the funds for something other than their intended purpose may result in repayment to FEMA
FEMA sends each applicant a notification letter informing them of the types of assistance they are eligible to receive, and the amounts of aid FEMA is providing for each eligible need
These may include:Repairs to make a home safe, sanitary, and secure to live in
Rental assistance to temporarily pay for a place to stay
Repair or replacement of a disaster-damaged essential vehicle
Medical care for an injury caused by the disaster
Replacing clothing, occupational tools and educational materials
Moving and storage expenses related to the disaster
Replacing medical equipment
Federal law prohibits FEMA from duplicating assistance that is available from other sources, such as insurance
If you do not use your FEMA assistance funds as described above, you may be asked to repay FEMA
Do not use your assistance funds for vacation, entertainment, or any expenses not related to the disaster
You should keep receipts for three years to show how you spent FEMA grants and document how your disaster funds were used
As you start receiving funds for rental assistance, home repairs, or other categories of assistance, be assured federal disaster assistance funds are tax-free and will not affect payments from other federal programs such as Medicare or Social Security
Follow FEMA online, on X @FEMA or @FEMAEspanol, on FEMA’s Facebook page or Espanol page and at FEMA’s YouTube account
For preparedness information follow the Ready Campaign on X at @Ready
gov, on Instagram @Ready
gov or on the Ready Facebook page
California is committed to supporting residents impacted by the Los Angeles Hurricane-Force Firestorm as they navigate the recovery process
Visit CA
gov/LAFires for up-to-date information on disaster recovery programs, important deadlines, and how to apply for assistance
Sacramento, California – Governor Gavin Newsom today issued a proclamation declaring March 17, 2025 through March 23, 2025, as Women’s Military History Week.
The text of the proclamation and a copy can be found below:
PROCLAMATION
From the Revolutionary War to today, women have played vital roles in our nation’s defense, answering the call to serve and demonstrating courage and dedication in every branch of the military – even before they could officially serve. Women’s Military History Week honors these women, recognizing their resilience, sacrifice, and leadership.
World War II marked a turning point with the creation of the Women’s Army Corps and the historic 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-Black and all-woman unit that ensured frontline troops received their mail. These forerunners helped pave the way for the full integration of women into all military roles, including combat positions.
Breaking down barriers has always made our military – and our country – stronger. This week, we celebrate all the women who have chosen to serve this country, no matter the cost to themselves, and we honor the history they’ve made in doing so.
From U.S. Army Sergeant Sagen Maddalena, silver medal winner in the 2024 Summer Olympics, to Captain Sage Fox, the first transgender soldier to openly serve, to our own CalVet Secretary Lindsey Sin, California is home to countless women who have selflessly and bravely put their lives on the line – all of them history makers in their own way.
Each of these servicemembers, whether they’re active-duty or a veteran, those with us today and those who have passed on, deserve recognition and respect. At a moment when important parts and people of military history are being removed, we take this moment to acknowledge women’s military history. Our military is strong because of its many parts – because it draws on the strengths of our people, coming together in unity and in defense of our country.
Women’s Military History Week is a time to recognize these achievements and reaffirm our commitment to a military where all servicemembers have equal opportunities and recognition. Their stories inspire us and remind us of the strength that diversity brings to our U.S. Armed Forces.
NOW THEREFORE I, GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of the State of California, do hereby proclaim March 17-23, 2025, as “Women’s Military History Week.”
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of California to be affixed this 16th day of March 2025.
GAVIN NEWSOM Governor of California
ATTEST: SHIRLEY N. WEBER, Ph.D. Secretary of State
Recent news
Mar 18, 2025
News What you need to know: California will provide a total of $2.4 billion in utility bill credits this year thanks to the state’s Cap-and-Trade program that funds critical climate action. SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom announced millions of Californians…
Mar 18, 2025
News What you need to know: Governor Newsom and Los Angeles community-based organizations (CBOs) today announced $25 million to advance educational outreach to workers and businesses about vital health, safety, and workplace protections. LOS ANGELES — As rebuilding in…
Mar 18, 2025
News What you need to know: With the release of a new draft working report by leading artificial intelligence experts, California continues to lead in advocating for the responsible use of emerging AI technology and the study of its impacts and opportunities. SAN…
What you need to know: California will provide a total of $2.4 billion in utility bill credits this year thanks to the state’s Cap-and-Trade program that funds critical climate action.
SACRAMENTO – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom announced millions of Californians will receive an average of $137 in credits on their April gas and electric bills. The California Climate Credit – automatically applied to Californians’ bills every April and October – is a direct result of the state’s nation-leading Cap-and-Trade climate program that requires polluters to pay for climate action.
Since 2014, California households have already received an average of $1,120 in combined automatic April and October climate credits on their utility bills.
Every year, our Cap-and-Trade program provides essential funding to California’s efforts to clean the air while also giving residents money back on their utility bills. Millions of California families will benefit from this relief.
Governor Gavin Newsom
Since 2014, the state’s Cap-and-Trade program has delivered $10.9 billion in bill credits back to utility customers. This year, California will provide a total of $2.4 billion in residential credits – $1.4 billion for electric customers, $1 billion for natural gas customers, and an additional $122 million for small businesses.
How it works
The credits range from $35 to $259 for electricity bills – with most set to receive $56 to $81 – and approximately $54 to $87 on natural gas bills for residential customers of PG&E, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Company, and Southwest Gas. Californians can check how much their credit will be here.
Californians do not need to do anything to get the credit. The California Climate Credit comes from the State’s Cap-and-Trade Program managed by the California Air Resources Board. The credit on utility bills represents the consumer’s share of the payments from the State’s program.
In addition to utility bill credits, California’s Cap-and-Trade program has funded $28 billion in climate investments delivering more than half a million projects across the state, supporting 30,000 jobs and cutting millions of tons of carbon emissions. The investments include a wide range of solutions such as putting affordable housing near job centers, building the nation’s first high-speed rail, and adding zero-emission transportation options in underserved communities.
Press Releases, Recent News
Recent news
Mar 18, 2025
News What you need to know: Governor Newsom and Los Angeles community-based organizations (CBOs) today announced $25 million to advance educational outreach to workers and businesses about vital health, safety, and workplace protections. LOS ANGELES — As rebuilding in…
Mar 18, 2025
News What you need to know: With the release of a new draft working report by leading artificial intelligence experts, California continues to lead in advocating for the responsible use of emerging AI technology and the study of its impacts and opportunities. SAN…
Mar 17, 2025
News SACRAMENTO – Governor Gavin Newsom issued the following statement regarding the death of San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Hector Cuevas Jr.:“Jennifer and I are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of Deputy Cuevas. Our heartfelt condolences go out to his…
The European Investment Bank (EIB Global) has availed over €1.2 million (over Ksh 166 million) in technical assistance support to cities in East Africa for preparation of climate resilient urban development projects.
The cities set to benefit from this technical assistance are Kericho, Nyamira, Kisumu, Embu, Eldoret and Malindi in Kenya as well as Zanzibar in Tanzania and Makindye in Uganda.
EIB Global’s support to cities is financed through the City Climate Finance Gap Fund – a multi-donor trust fund supported by Germany and Luxembourg and implemented jointly with the World Bank and in close partnership with German Development Cooperation (GIZ). The technical assistance program focuses on early-stage project preparation with an aim of facilitating access to finance for urban projects that would otherwise potentially remain at idea stage.
Most of the support for the cities in the region will revolve around assessing options for managing solid waste and faecal sludge, waste to energy solutions through production of biogas and wastewater treatment. Preliminary proposed solutions have recommended integrated solid waste management plans that encompass segregation of waste at source, separation of waste collections, waste recovery and proper disposal.
Further technical assistance promotes active mobility through evaluating non-motorised transport options, implementing urban flood proofing measures to mitigate flood risks and enhancing environmental sustainability by establishment of green public parks as well as expansion of urban forestry and biodiversity.
In Kenya, EIB Global’s support is geared towards helping the cities access further financing support from an ongoing infrastructure investment programme known as the Kenya Urban Support Programme II, upon completion of the Gap Fund technical assistance.
EIB Vice President Thomas Ostros said, “Cities and local governments play a key role in fighting climate change because they experience its effects the most. However, they often struggle to develop climate-resilient infrastructure, mainly due to a lack of resources and expertise to create strong, investment-ready projects. Through its support for the Gap Fund, the EIB helps cities bridge these gaps and prepare effective climate projects.”
Technical assistance for project preparation plays a vital role in facilitating the implementation and financing of climate action projects by availing bankable opportunities. This is particularly true at urban or sub-national level where local authorities sometimes do not have enough in-house capacity to prepare robust projects that can attract public and private finance providers at an international level.
The European Investment Bank is very active in urban climate finance especially through the City Climate Finance Gap Fund. The Bank works with other partners to advise on projects that will place cities on a path to net zero.
Background information
About EIB Global
The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States. It finances investments that contribute to EU policy objectives.
EIB Global is the EIB Group’s specialised arm devoted to increasing the impact of international partnerships and development finance, and a key partner of Global Gateway. We aim to support €100 billion of investment by the end of 2027 — around one-third of the overall target of this EU initiative. Within Team Europe, EIB Global fosters strong, focused partnerships alongside fellow development finance institutions and civil society. EIB Global brings the EIB Group closer to people, companies and institutions through our offices across the world. High-quality, up-to-date photos of our headquarters for media use are available here.
About City Climate Finance Gap Fund:
Cities are key to creating a climate-smart future. Over half the global population lives in cities, generating 80% of total economic output and accounting for 70% of global CO2 emissions. While urbanization is a key driver of growth, unplanned, rapid urbanization and urban sprawl threaten to increase greenhouse gas emissions and vulnerability to climate change and other shocks. As many cities and local governments take steps to become low-carbon and climate-resilient, they face barriers in accessing finance as well as difficulties in planning and project preparation, due to insufficient capacity or resources — particularly in the early stages of the project cycle. The Gap Fund supports cities in addressing this specific challenges.
On 20th September 2023, the governments of Germany and Luxembourg announced new funding of €50 million for the City Climate Finance Gap Fund (Gap Fund), a multi-donor fund, implemented by the World Bank and the European Investment Bank with partners. These resources will support the development of low-carbon and climate-resilient urban investments and will nearly than double the fund’s capitalization, bringing it to €105 million, one of the largest early-stage technical assistance funds for cities and climate.
It provides much-needed funding for early-stage technical assistance and capacity building so that cities from low- and middle-income countries can operationalize their climate action plans, develop robust project concepts, and access climate finance resources. Since its establishment in 2020, EIB has supported 137 cities in developing and emerging economies through the Gap Fund.
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Arthur Khomotso Mahuma, Economist and Researcher at the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, University of Johannesburg
Poultry is one of the cheapest protein sources for the growing population of the east and southern Africa region. That makes soybeans critical to food security in the region, as they are an important input in chicken feed.
Soybean pricing and production dynamics have been challenging for Zambia and Malawi, threatening poultry production in the region.
Poultry feed makes up 60%-70% of the total cost of poultry production. Soybean prices directly affect the affordability of poultry and the ability of producers to be competitive. Small-scale independent poultry producers in particular have a hard time because they buy feed from the open market and are too small to determine prices. Large producers source feed from their own operations and determine soybean prices.
Figure 1: From soybeans to poultry
Source:Authors compilation
Zambia and Malawi are the key soybean producers in east and southern Africa. Both countries were hit hard in 2024 by climate change related weather and by the behaviour of players in the soybean market, including processors and traders.
Zambia’s soybean production fell by 74% because of poor rains and also because of farmers being squeezed. Large buyers had negotiated very low prices in previous years, so farmers planted less.
Malawi’s production also fell (20%), but much less than Zambia’s. Yet the surge in soybean prices in Malawi by 48% between May 2024 and November 2024 was out of proportion with the drop in production, and even surpassed Zambian prices (Figure 2). Malawian prices were the highest in the region, even though it produced enough to export.
We are economists at the African Market Observatory, which monitors prices of staple foods and conducts research on market dynamics. We analyse market concentration and barriers to entry, within and across countries in east and southern Africa, and we do in-depth field work.
Our work shows that competition issues, such as the ability of large buyers to influence prices and high margins, are at the heart of the surge in prices and low production in Malawi and Zambia. The climate-related weather effects are an additional factor.
Figure 2: Soybean prices in Zambia, Malawi and South Africa (benchmark) (3-month moving averages)
Source: Authors calculation based on data provided by the African Market Observatory (AMO)’s partners
Market outcomes
In Zambia, dominant buyers of soybean offered farmers very low prices during the 2023 season – well below US$400/t and the South African benchmark (Figure 2). This meant that farmers planted less than half the 2023 crop in the 2024 season.
Crops were also affected by poor rainfall. Malawi’s 2024 production fell by 20% because of the worst drought in 100 years. The drop in production was lower than expected, demonstrating that farmers can adapt to weather changes. Prices still rose, however, driven by the highly concentrated soybean trading and processing market.
Cheapest source of proteins
Poultry is one of the cheapest sources of protein and has one of the lowest environmental impacts. It is essential that the value chain works well from feed to chicken rearing and becomes more resilient to extreme weather events.
The experience of 2024 shows what can go wrong.
Poultry demand in sub-Saharan Africa is expected to grow more than fourfold by 2050. Producers will need affordable feed.
Among them are many small-scale independent producers who rely on competitive markets for their inputs. Yet we found that with the escalating soybean and feed prices in Malawi from late 2021, and higher prices for day-old chicks, small independent producers had negative margins, meaning they made a loss in the second half of 2021. High feed prices undermine the competitiveness of Malawi’s poultry industry.
Aside from South Africa (which relies on genetically modified soybean), Zambia and Malawi have been the largest producers in the region. These countries have been exporting around half of their production (including soycake) to neighbouring countries with larger populations such as Tanzania and Kenya.
Zambia’s production plummet
Between 2020 and 2023, Zambia’s soybean production grew from 297,000 tonnes to 650,000 tonnes (Figure 3). In 2024, its production collapsed by 74% to 170,000 tonnes. This sharp decline was primarily due to farmers opting to plant less soybean because of the low prices offered from processors in 2023 (Figure 2). Farmers bought 50% less soybean seed for the 2024 season than the 2023 season.
Figure 3: Soybean production in Zambia and Malawi
Source: Authors calculation based on data provided by the African Market Observatory (AMO)’s partners.
In Zambia, soybeans are produced by many small farmers, so they compete to sell their crop to a few main processors in a concentrated market. As a result, these processors have greater power to influence the terms of trade, such as price. This was especially evident in 2023 when processors offered farmers lower prices (Figure 2).
Poor rainfall linked to the 2023/24 El Niño phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation, which is the warming of the central to eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, causing drought in southern Africa while inducing heavy rainfalls and floods in eastern Africa, did have an impact across southern Africa, including Malawi and Zambia. While Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania recorded above average rainfall, their soybean output is low.
Resilience to climate change impacts requires deepening and diversifying agriculture production across countries and regional trade to meet demand.
Soybean prices in Malawi remain high but Zambia’s prices stabilise
Malawi’s prices increased rapidly to over US$700/tonne in June 2024, surpassing Zambia’s, and continued to rise to almost $900/tonne at the end of the year, far above other countries in the region. The reason couldn’t be reduced production from poor rainfall, because production still exceeded local demand. This happened even as the Malawi government put export restrictions on soybeans (but not soymeal). The price surge raises competition concerns in Malawi, where trading and processing is highly concentrated. In theory, highly concentrated markets are characterised by high prices, due to a lack of price competition.
By comparison, Zambia’s prices moderated because of imports. In addition, the low soybean prices offered to farmers in 2023 also meant that processors had crushed surplus soybeans, thereby building up soymeal stock. This reduced the demand for soybeans, as did power cuts in Zambia, which limited crushers’ operations.
Urgent next steps
Soybean developments over 2024 show the need to consider how competition issues within and across borders can undermine the resilience of regional food markets and hinder the ability of small producers to compete. Zambia is currently conducting a commercial poultry market inquiry. But a regional approach in monitoring markets and tackling anti-competitive conduct is necessary to support poultry production.
– High soybean prices in Zambia and Malawi may make chicken costly too: lack of competition is to blame – https://theconversation.com/high-soybean-prices-in-zambia-and-malawi-may-make-chicken-costly-too-lack-of-competition-is-to-blame-250322
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Assefa Leake Gebru, Assistant Professor of Political Science and Strategic Studies , Mekelle University
For over 20 years, Ethiopia was led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, a coalition of four ethnic-based political parties representing Tigray, Amhara, Oromo, and Southern nations, nationalities and peoples. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front was the most influential party within the coalition. However, in 2018, when the Prosperity Party came into power, the front lost its important role in government.
On 4 November 2020, the federal government launched an attack on Tigray, terming it a military offensive against political aggression from the Tigrayan front. This sparked a war that lasted two years, and caused severe damage to people and resources. The African Union’s lead mediator in the crisis, Olusegun Obasanjo, estimated about 600,000 civilians were killed. This makes it one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century.
On 2 November 2022, the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front signed a peace deal in South Africa, the Pretoria agreement. More than two years later, however, Tigray still faces immense political and humanitarian challenges. Assefa Leake Gebru, who has studied post-war Tigray, explains what’s happening.
What’s the current situation in Tigray?
The 2022-2022 war and its lingering effects have thrown the Tigray region into chaos. People are grappling to get basics like food, water and medicine. The regional economy was devastated by the war. There have been no rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts so far. Humanitarian aid is limited. Imagine if your local grocery store ran out of everything and couldn’t restock – that’s the situation I have witnessed and studied in Tigray, which is affecting millions of residents.
Additionally, the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front are now fighting among themselves for power. The division is mainly between two factions: one led by former regional president Debretsion Gebremichael and the other by Getachew Reda, who heads the interim administration.
In January 2025, leaders of Tigray’s military forces supported calls from the Debretsion faction for new regional leadership. The interim administration opposed this, calling it a soft coup. The federal government considers the political faction led by Debretsion illegitimate. The military leaders’ decision also sparked public protests, with Tigrayans calling for a separation between the military and politics.
This internal division has weakened the interim administration, which was installed as part of the Pretoria agreement in March 2023.
Given this situation, the interim administration remains fragile amid serious humanitarian concerns and security threats facing the region. The interim government and dysfunctional law enforcement institutions aren’t strong enough to fix things.
Economically, jobs remain scarce. A 2024 survey found a youth unemployment rate of 81%. This situation has been created by economic collapse, asset plunder during the war and the absence of a functioning government.
Socially, people are stressed and hurting, like a community still reeling from a major fallout. It’s a pile-up of problems that are making life incredibly tough.
What, exactly, is the Pretoria agreement?
The Pretoria agreement is an important peace deal between Tigray’s political leaders and the federal government. It was signed in Pretoria, South Africa, on 2 November 2022. The African Union facilitated the peace talks hosted by South Africa.
The goal of the agreement? End the violence that began in 2020, keep people safe by calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities, allow aid like food trucks to roll in, disarm Tigray fighters and set up an interim government to restore order.
It also aimed to re-establish the Ethiopian government’s control over federal installations in Tigray.
What has been implemented and what hasn’t?
There has been some positive progress. The Pretoria agreement established the interim government. Some everyday services are back, like banks reopening and planes flying again. A few Tigray fighters have put down their weapons.
But here’s where it gets messy. Soldiers from Eritrea – which supported the Ethiopian army in the Tigray war – and militias from another Ethiopian region, Amhara, are still hanging around Tigray, raising security threats. They’re preventing internally displaced persons from going back home.
The plan to fully disarm Tigrayan fighters hasn’t been completed either. This threatens regional stability, undermines peace efforts and increases the risk of renewed violence.
What are the implications of not fully executing the Pretoria agreement?
First, the region’s humanitarian crisis could worsen. An estimated one million displaced people are grappling with high levels of food insecurity, and thousands of schools remain closed. A weak interim government and the continued occupation of parts of Tigray by armed groups has hindered the restoration of services and stifled economic progress.
Second, the division within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front makes it hard to lead the region under an interim administration. A lack of consensus on power-sharing has hindered effective governance, undermining the intended transitional authority.
Third, a weak interim government can’t keep civilians safe, which was a pillar of the Pretoria agreement. Economically, the lack of jobs and skyrocketing prices are hitting Tigrayans hard. Socially, everyone’s on edge.
Finally, there’s a risk of igniting further conflict in the region along the political fault lines between Debretsion and Getachew. There is a high chance of this situation being manipulated by Eritrean forces, who weren’t involved in the negotiations that led to the Pretoria agreement. The fractures in the interim government provide an opportunity for neighbouring Eritrea to support one faction against the other, which could escalate into war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front has been one of Eritrea’s bitterest enemies. The antagonism between the two led to the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
If these tensions keep up, Tigray will remain stuck in an awful cycle. The African Union and international community must address these issues to prevent a spiral into further chaos.
– Ethiopia’s war may have ended, but the Tigray crisis hasn’t – https://theconversation.com/ethiopias-war-may-have-ended-but-the-tigray-crisis-hasnt-251846
The opening article underscores the importance of knowledge sharing among city governments. Other articles discuss how urban green spaces can reduce flooding and the burning of waste, how growing mungbeans can reduce reliance on chemical fertilizers, and how internet access can increase farmers’ incomes. Authors also examine trade costs in Central Asia and participation in global value chains.
For print subscription, e-mail: [email protected]
Using a newly constructed index of trade openness, this paper finds a significant direct effect of openness on poverty reduction.
Open Submissions
This paper exploits the staggered roll-out of a landmark Air Quality Monitoring Program in the People’s Republic of China to study the migration response to pollution information disclosure and labor market outcomes.
This study explores how local elites’ traits influence environmental performance, both before and after the amendment to the Environmental Protection Law.
This study investigates the impact of green open spaces in reducing the probability of flooding and open waste burning in urban areas in Indonesia’s three largest metropolitan cities: Surabaya, Jakarta, and Medan.
This paper studies participation by developing Asian economies in global value chains (GVCs) and uses an input–output framework to measure the impacts that GVCs of final manufactured products have on jobs and income.
This paper investigates whether engagement with e-commerce is linked to increased sales and productivity gains for informal firms in South Asia.
This study in Nepal assesses the determinants of mungbean adoption and its impact on fertilizer use, agricultural productivity, and food security.
This paper measures the impact of a micronutrient training among women farmers with young children on the demand for zinc-enhanced varieties.
This study examines the association between internet use in agriculture and farm earnings in Indonesia.
This paper identifies and examines income shock and price shock channels through which climatic disasters affect domestic consumption in the case of Bangladesh.
Mini Symposium on Trade Costs in Central Asia
This paper analyzes the impact of trade costs on the exports in five Central Asian countries using a structural gravity model and Corridor Performance Measurement and Monitoring trade cost indicators.
This study examines the effects of at-the-border and behind-the-border measures on the intraregional perishable goods trade in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation region.
This paper examines the effect of COVID-19 mobility measures on the time required for cargo to clear the border crossing points of Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation countries.
US President Donald Trump’s phone call with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, didn’t take a tangible step towards ending the hostilities in Ukraine, let alone finding an enduring peace. Rather, it provided further evidence of Putin’s ability to string along and outsmart Trump.
For starters, Putin sent a signal by making Trump wait for more than an hour to talk. Putin was speaking at a televised conference with Russian businesspeople and even made a joke about the delay when told the time for his call was approaching.
This was clearly designed to show his alpha status, both to Trump and the Russian public. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, was reportedly made to wait eight hours by Putin when he arrived in Moscow last week for talks.
And after Tuesday’s call, Putin only agreed to pause attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure for 30 days, rather than the total ceasefire proposed by Trump and agreed to by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
And even this agreement lacked clarity. The lengthy Kremlin statement on the call said the pause would only apply to attacks on energy infrastructure, while the vaguer White House read-out said it included a much broader “energy and infrastructure” agreement. The Kremlin will doubtless stick to the narrow concept.
The Kremlin’s statement also said Trump proposed this idea and Putin reacted positively. This seems implausible given that pausing attacks on energy infrastructure would be the least costly partial ceasefire for Russia to agree to.
It seems more likely this proposal came from Putin as a “compromise”, even though Trump was earlier threatening fire and brimstone if Russia did not agree to a proper ceasefire.
Russia will still be able to continue its ground offensive in Ukraine, where it has the upper hand thanks to Ukrainian manpower shortages (despite its own horrendous losses). It will also be able to maintain its bombardment of Ukrainian civilian targets that has already cost possibly as many as 100,000 civilian lives and half a trillion US dollars in mooted reconstruction costs.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has only rarely hit residential areas in Russia. However, it has achieved considerable success with long-distance drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure, threatening one of the main funding sources of Moscow’s war effort.
Putin’s war aims remain unchanged
The Kremlin’s read-out of the call also noted that various sticking points remain to achieve a full ceasefire in Ukraine.
These included the Kyiv regime’s “inability to negotiate in good faith”, which has “repeatedly sabotaged and violated the agreements reached.” The Kremlin also accused Ukrainian militants of “barbaric terrorist crimes” in the Kursk region of Russia that Ukraine briefly occupied.
This is not new language, but shows breathtaking chutzpah. It’s Russia, in fact, that has broken several agreements vowing to respect Ukraine’s borders, as well as numerous provisions of the Geneva Conventions on treatment of civilian populations and prisoners of war. It has even violated the Genocide Convention in the eyes of some scholars.
That a US president could let this kind of statement go unchallenged underscores the extent of the White House’s volte-face on Ukraine.
The Kremlin also asserted that a “key principle” for further negotiations must be the cessation of foreign military aid and intelligence to Ukraine.
Given Trump has already frozen arms and intelligence support to Ukraine to make Zelensky more compliant, Putin no doubt thinks he might do so again. This, in turn, would strengthen Russia’s leverage in negotiations.
Trump has already given away huge bargaining chips that could have been used to pressure Russia towards a just and enduring outcome. These include:
holding talks with Russia without Ukraine present
ruling out security guarantees for Ukraine and NATO membership in the longer term, and
foreshadowing that Ukraine should cede its sovereign territory in defiance of international law.
Putin may be content to string out the ceasefire talks as long as he can in the hopes Russian troops can consolidate their hold on Ukrainian territory and completely expel Ukrainian forces from the Kursk region inside Russia.
He shows no sign of resiling from his key aims since the beginning of the war – to reimpose Russian dominance over Ukraine and its foreign and domestic policies, and to retain the territories it has illegally annexed.
The fact Moscow has signed treaties to formally incorporate and assimilate these Ukrainian regions fully into Russia – rather than merely occupying them – underlines how this has always been a war of imperial reconquest rather than a response to perceived military threat.
At the same time, if he can get much of what he wants, Putin may just be tempted to end the war to further a more business-as-usual relationship with the US. Trump has dangled various carrots to encourage Putin to do this, from renewed US investment in Russia to easing sanctions to ice hockey games.
Ukraine’s lines in the sand
Ukraine’s immediate reaction to the Trump-Putin call appears to be cautiously accepting of a limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure. This is no doubt to avoid incurring Trump’s wrath.
At the same time, Ukraine’s bottom line remains firm:
Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty are non-negotiable
it must be able to choose its own foreign alliances and partnerships, and
it must be able to defend itself, without limits on the size of its army or its weaponry.
The only way to square the circle would be to freeze the conflict at the current front lines in Ukraine and leave the status of the annexed Ukrainian regions to be resolved in future negotiations.
But even this would have little credibility unless Russia revoked its annexations and allowed international organisations and observers to enter the region to encourage a modicum of compliance with international law.
Jon Richardson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
China has advocated resolving the Ukraine crisis through dialogue and negotiation from the very beginning, and is pleased to see all efforts towards a ceasefire as a necessary step towards peace, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday.
Mao made the remarks at a regular news briefing when asked to comment on the phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
The White House said in a statement that the two leaders agreed that the three-year Ukraine conflict needs to end with a lasting peace, and the two leaders stressed the need for improved U.S.-Russia relations.
SYDNEY, Australia, March 19, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sydney-based cybersecurity software company Knocknoc has raised a seed round from US-based venture capital firm Decibel Partners with support from CoAct and SomethingReal.
The funding will support go-to-market, new staff, customer onboarding and product development. The company has appointed Adam Pointon as Chief Executive Officer.
“The opportunity here is limitless,” Pointon said. “You’d be hard pressed to find an organisation that couldn’t benefit in some way from using Knocknoc.”
Knocknoc orchestrates network infrastructure to remove risk exposure by tying users’ network access to their SSO authentication status.
By selectively opening network connections to users on a just-in-time basis, Knocknoc eliminates attack surface and solves compliance challenges. Knocknoc prevents would-be attackers from being able to connect to the types of network devices and applications that are prone to falling victim to zero-day attacks.
Customers use Knocknoc to protect VPNs and firewalls, IP cameras, payroll systems, file transfer appliances, bastion hosts and other applications and network services. Knocknoc is also easy to use with cloud-based infrastructure.
It can also be used on internal networks to add multifactor authentication to legacy systems to satisfy compliance requirements.
Knocknoc has also appointed Decibel Partners Founder Advisor and Risky Business Media CEO Patrick Gray to its board of directors.
“Knocknoc is a terrific way for organisations to quickly and easily reduce their exposure to the types of attacks that are plaguing enterprises right now,” said Gray. “It’s simple, quick to implement and delivers an immediate benefit.”
Knocknoc is already in use in Australian and US critical infrastructure, large telecommunications networks and media companies.
The Knocknoc founders are Andrew Foster, David Kempe and Adam Pointon.
GLEN KELLY: Well, this is a great honour today as the Member for Mirani. It’s my honour to welcome today, we have our Federal Member, Infrastructure Minister, Catherine King. We have our state transport minister, Brent Mickelberg. And it’s an honour to have our two colleagues here, Donna Kirkland from- member for Rockhampton, and our member for Keppel, Nigel Hutton. Today is a big announcement today on the Bruce. The Bruce Highway. The Bruce Highway is the busiest highway in Queensland, and today’s announcement is going to be very welcome to the electorate of Mirani, as Mirani has 400 kilometres of the Bruce. And today’s announcement is going to go a long way into supporting the area of Mirani. Thank you and I’ll welcome Catherine King. Thank you very much.
CATHERINE KING: Thank you. Well, look, it’s terrific to be here today. Can I thank very much my state counterpart, Brent Mickelberg. This is the first press conference we’ve done together, and this is a great partnership on the Bruce Highway. Back in January, Prime Minister Albanese, and I announced the $7.2 billion to fix the Bruce after a significant campaign by the RACQ. And I thank and acknowledge that David is here with us, and all of the communities along the highway. Matched then, or put in by $1.8 billion by the Queensland state government, and we are getting on with it. We are getting on with fixing the Bruce.
Today we’re announcing that we’re releasing $300 million for the first stage of projects. 23 projects, 16 of them are shoulder widening, dividing the road, making sure that we’re putting those safety improvements in place. And then a further number of projects are the planning stages of the next tranche. We’ve got the Bruce Highway Advisory Committee is meeting in Rockhampton today. Brent and I will both be meeting with them to work through what are the next stages of projects. We want to get this done. This, of course, the $9 billion safety program is in addition to the money that is already being spent on the Bruce Highway, over $10 billion of major projects that are already underway. And today, we’re announcing some additional money for some of those. 200 million to deal with some cost pressures that have occurred again on the Rocky Ring Road, and Minister Mickelberg will talk a little bit about those, but making sure that we didn’t have to reduce the scope of the Rocky Ring Road in any way, but putting that additional money in from the Commonwealth to make sure that full scope of the project is realised.
We’re also- finally, we’ve got some agreement on what the projects are under the Beef Road corridors. This is a $500 million program between the Queensland Government and ourselves. So 38 million is being released for that today. And then some further money being released for the Rockhampton to Gladstone corridor projects. But this is a really good day for the Bruce. What we’re trying to do as a joint government initiative is to really fix this road. We know that its safety is not up to scratch. We hear it every single day, and the fact that 41 people lost their lives last year alone is way too many. A single life lost is too many, but 41 was certainly something that we were highly concerned about, hence the commitment. So really what we’re trying to do here is improve the safety of the Bruce substantially, lift it from where it is two star to at least three star. If we can get it higher, we will through road safety treatments, but really concentrating on the worst bits first. And that’s what these projects do. And I want to thank very much, Minister Mickelberg, for working so closely with ourselves to really get this first tranche $300 million released, for getting on with it. The work has started. I think you’ll see workers on the road either today or in the coming days actually getting on with these projects. I’ll hand over to Minister Mickelberg and then we’ll take some questions.
BRENT MICKELBERG: Thank you very much, Minister. Well, it’s an absolute pleasure to join here today with the Australian government delivering on our commitment to better the Bruce Highway. We made it very clear over the last four years and through the recent election campaign that the Bruce Highway was one of our key priorities as a new Queensland Government, and it has been a tremendous privilege to be able to partner with the Australian government to deliver these critical works on the Bruce Highway. Nine billion dollars over the next six years to fix those worst parts of the Bruce Highway. And work has started today. We have workers on site now working on that early works package. So $300 million of funds, which has been released already, and they’re getting on with the job to address those immediate priorities.
As the Federal Minister mentioned, we have the Bruce Highway Advisory Council here in Rockhampton today, our second meeting of the Bruce Highway Advisory Council, which has local representatives from up and down the Bruce Highway in every single region that the Bruce Highway passes; key stakeholders like the Queensland Trucking Association – we’ve got Gary Mahon here from the Queensland Trucking Association, who you’ll hear from soon; the RACQ – David Carter from the RACQ as well. This is a body by which we can consider what needs to be done to address the Bruce Highway and prioritise the work across the Bruce Highway. We know there is considerable amount of work that needs to be done on the Bruce.
As the Federal Minister mentioned, over 40 lives were lost on the Bruce Highway last year. That is simply unacceptable. We’re committed to ending that toll which impacts Queenslanders every single- nearly every single week we lose a Queenslander on the Bruce Highway. That is simply unacceptable, and we can and must do more to make the Bruce Highway both safer and more resilient and more reliable. And that’s our commitment today. We’ve got a broader package of works outside this $9 billion program, projects like the Rockhampton Ring Road and others, and we’re committed to getting on with the job of delivering those projects on time and on budget. And it’s an absolute pleasure to be able to join with the Federal Government to kick off those works on the Bruce Highway here today, and hopefully we’ll see many more projects over the next six years delivered under this program. And I just want to thank the Federal Government for their commitment. It is a testament to being able to deliver for communities that we can work together to deliver a very considerable investment in Queensland’s major road network, of which- I think about 62 per cent of Queenslanders used the Bruce Highway in any given year. Many people use it every single day, including myself. I know the work that needs to go on the Bruce Highway, and we’re committed with getting on with the job of delivering that.
I’ll hand over now to Gary Mahon from the Queensland Trucking Association to talk about what it means for Queensland’s trucking industry.
GARY MAHON: Thank you, ministers. We’re absolutely delighted to be here today to see and acknowledge the state and federal ministers working together in partnership on what is the most critical road in the state as far as we’re concerned. It is the spine of the state in terms of road freight resupply, but it also has significant safety implications for everybody who uses that road. As far as we’re concerned, the safety improvements obviously are essential, but we also need to remind that other treatments that go to the sustainability of this route are vitally important as well. Overtaking lanes, you know, bridge treatments, bridge replacements, wide centreline marking and all of those treatments need to be dealt with together because we also have a situation unfolding right now in Far North Queensland where it’s cut off yet again. So Far North Queensland right now is fully cut off for the second time in about five weeks. So when you look at that section between Townsville and Cairns, it deserves a fair bit of remedial treatment as well, and it needs to be sooner rather than later. I heard the word unacceptable used before. It is unacceptable in today’s day and age that Far North Queensland has to live with being fully cut off more than twice a year. So if this event goes on up North Queensland the way it’s going, we could be in the order of 14-odd days where Far North Queensland cannot be supplied with daily normal replenishment. Supermarkets, hardware, pharmaceuticals, people getting to medical treatment, and all of those things that go with daily life. So we’re delighted to be endorsing this program of works. We’re even more pleased to see the state and federal governments working so closely together. And as a third point, to have that being done within the next six years is even better. So that will make a material difference to regional Queensland in a very quick space of time, and we couldn’t endorse that more strongly. Thank you.
BRENT MICKELBERG: Thanks, Gary. Hand over now to David Carter from the RACQ.
DAVID CARTER: Thank you. And I’d also like to start by just endorsing a lot of Gary’s comments there. It’s great to see federal and state governments working well together to sort out a problem that is significant for all of Queensland. The Bruce Highway needs work. It needs a long term program of work. The $9 billion commitment is a terrific signal from both governments about how important this road is. The package of works that’s been announced today, the $300 million of funding, allows for projects that are ready to go, that Main Roads have identified as ready to go, to start and get going on lifting the safety on these roads. There are so many places where we can improve from two stars to three. There’s no shortage of work. This allows work to commence now and more work to be done on the next phase of those projects that can be done as well.
We also need to acknowledge, as RACQ, the great support and collaboration we had with Gary and the Queensland Truckers Association, with the Farmers’ Federation, with the Local Government Association of Queensland, the College of Surgeons, and indeed the tourism industry as well in this conversation about the importance of fixing the Bruce for the benefit of all Queenslanders, which is really- as Minister Mickelberg just said, this road is vital to all of us here in Queensland. So it is a very good day to see money actually hitting the ground now, to see the work commencing, and we look forward over the next six years or so to see this $9 billion spent well and safety on the Bruce Highway improved significantly.
CATHERINE KING: Thank you. Happy to take questions. We’ll start with me or with-
JOURNALIST: Catherine [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: Yes, of course, of course.
JOURNALIST: Gary just touched on Far North Queensland, with the flooding event up there. Will you make flood proofing work a priority as part of this package?
CATHERINE KING: So separately to this package, there’s already- I’d have to check the figures, but there’s already a couple of billion dollars allocated to the Bruce Highway in Far North Queensland, including, I think, [indistinct] that’s yet to be allocated to a specific project. We’ll work, obviously, with the Queensland Government about how that money is to be spent on the Bruce on some of those bigger projects. Obviously, as part of our disaster recovery arrangements, we have now built in that we will build back better rather than just replacing what is existing. So obviously, around that particular area, there was some flooding earlier in the year. We’re still working our way through those disaster arrangements with the Queensland Government about what we do. But obviously, as we continue- as we do the safety work, we want to continue with those projects that are already existing within the pipeline to make sure we actually get some substantial improvements to the movement particularly of freight and people around the state.
JOURNALIST: Do you think it’s good enough that regional Queenslanders, particularly in the north, has continually had their lives and businesses disrupted by the state of the highway?
CATHERINE KING: Well, again, this is why we’re putting this investment in. This is a $9 billion investment on top of the $10 billion worth of projects that we’re already delivering along the highway. In particular, what we’ve tried to do with this package is to look at not down south, but really look to central and north because they are the areas where the road is at its worst, and that’s why we’re concentrating on those areas with these projects.
BRENT MICKELBERG: I might just touch on that [indistinct]…
CATHERINE KING: Yes, sure. Of course.
BRENT MICKELBERG: Just in relation to the flooding in the north, obviously, we had a significant event about six weeks ago I think it was. And we had the Prime Minister and the Premier on the ground at Ollera Creek, which was washed away, and the commitment from both the Prime Minister and the Premier, as the Federal Minister alluded to, is to build back better. So we’re focused on building in flood mitigation and improvements to capacity where we can, where we need to rectify damage. For example, at Ollera Creek, we’re going to build that crossing back better and build flood resilience into it.
Now, will we be able to make the Bruce Highway completely flood-proof? No, it’s built on a floodplain, but we can certainly reduce the impact and the incidence and the severity of the flooding that occurs in places like Ingham. And right now, the Bruce Highway is cut again at the Seymour Bridge, and as Gary spoke about, so too are the inland routes. So we need to be looking at all aspects of the routes, north and south, in North Queensland. So whether that is the Kennedy Development Road, the Hann Highway, the Bruce Highway, we need to be building in resilience wherever possible, and we’re committed to working with the Federal Government to delivering just that. And I think you’ve got a unity ticket from the Prime Minister and the Premier of Queensland to deliver better roads and more resilient roads, both on the Bruce Highway and on our inland routes as well.
In relation to this package, though, one point I wanted to make. So this $9 billion, every single dollar of this package will be spent north of Gympie. None of this money will be spent in the south east. It will address critical concerns, safety issues from Gympie through to Cairns, and I think that’s a really important point to make. We know that those sections of the Bruce Highway are where the safety issues are greatest. And while we have flood impacts closing the Bruce Highway, so too do we have serious motor vehicle crashes which also closed the Bruce Highway, and this money will go a long way to reducing some of those instances.
JOURNALIST: Minister, you’re here today to announce stage one works. Where will that work begin?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Well, there’s 16 projects up and down the Bruce Highway. [Indistinct] So we actually inspected one of those sites yesterday, south of Tiaro, but there’s also works to the north of Townsville, south of Townsville, in Central Queensland here as well. We can provide you a map incidentally as well for your story subsequently. So the 16 early works packages, this is about getting on with the job of those areas where the work had already been done, the design work had been done. And we know there’s a critical need. Things like turning lanes off the Bruce Highway and onto the Bruce Highway, wide centreline, widening the shoulder, addressing the pavement where it is in a particularly bad state, these are projects that we could get on with the job of delivering straight away, and we have workers on site right now delivering those projects.
JOURNALIST: Can you tell us a bit more about the committee meeting today?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Yeah. So, one of the tasks I was given by the Premier was to re-establish the Bruce Highway Advisory Council. We had our first meeting in Townsville before Christmas. And one of the other tasks I was given was to seek 80-20 funding from the Federal Government. I’m very pleased that the Australian Government have come to the party and provided 80-20 funding for this package of $9 billion on the Bruce Highway. It’s a welcome investment, and it’s a recognition of the fact that we needed to invest in this critical road for Queensland’s future.
Look, the committee meeting today will actually be considering where we can best target the spending for the balance, the $8.7 billion of the balance of this program. There are many, many works that need to be done up and down the Bruce Highway. My department, the Department of Transport and Main Roads, have done a considerable amount of work over many years working out where those critical needs are. And today we will be discussing – the Federal Minister and myself and committee members which, as I said, includes local representatives, people who use the Bruce Highway for all sorts of different reasons, whether they’re truck drivers, a local representative here, her mother was tragically or was seriously injured in a motor vehicle crash on the Bruce Highway – and so people are invested in making sure that the Bruce Highway is safer, more resilient and more reliable. So, today’s meeting we will be discussing how we can best roll out these funds. And then the Federal Government and the Queensland Government will work collaboratively to get work started as soon as possible.
JOURNALIST: So, how important is it having everyday Queenslanders who have been impacted by the Bruce on that committee?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Well, I think it’s incredibly important to have local voices informing government policy wherever we can. And I was- one of the things I wanted to see when we re-established the Bruce Highway Advisory Council is to ensure that all sections of the Bruce Highway are representative- represented. So, whether that’s the Sunshine Coast right through to the far north, there’s our local representative from every single one of those districts on the Bruce Highway Advisory Council.
They all bring a different approach and different challenges. The challenges on the Bruce Highway in my part of the world, on the Sunshine Coast, are fundamentally different to the challenges in the far north and in North Queensland, or here in central Queensland for that matter. And I think it’s really important that those who use the road every single day are listened to and that we take their views into account. Now, industry is a big part of that. Queensland Trucking Association, the RACQ, Local Government Association of Queensland, they’re really important stakeholders and they’re all members of the Bruce Highway Advisory Council as well. But so too are those local voices, because they bring a different way of looking at the problem. And they bring lived experience of having to drive the Bruce Highway every single day, in many cases.
JOURNALIST: Minister, specifically in Paluma, near Townsville…
BRENT MICKELBERG: Yes.
JOURNALIST: …these residents have been taking three hour detours for a month now. Can you reassure them it’ll be fixed soon?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Look, we’ve got massive issues on the Mount Spec Road, which is the road to Paluma. Considerable impacts as a consequence of the flooding and the rain associated with the event six weeks or so ago in the north. It is going to take a considerable amount of time to rectify those, the damage to that road. We’re committed to working with the local community to support them through that process [indistinct], but the reality is it will take time. We have had significant landslips and, as a consequence, the road is currently not safe to be able to traverse.
However, that’s why we appointed a local disaster coordinator in Andrew Cripps, and I’ve been working with both Andrew and the local member, Nick Dametto, local state member Nick Dametto, to ensure, one, that the community is informed, and two, to ensure that we get those works completed as soon as possible. But it will take time. The damage is very, very considerable and- but we’re committed to ensuring that we both address the immediate concerns of reopening the roads for locals so they can get to and from home and to and from work, but also ensuring that we build in resilience in the long term so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past.
JOURNALIST: Two questions. How much has the Ring Road project in Rockhampton blown out to?
BRENT MICKELBERG: So, the Federal Government have committed an additional $200 million today, and the federal minister may wish to speak to that. Look, my focus as the new Transport- Queensland Transport Main Roads Minister is to deliver this project. And far too many projects have run over budget and over time here in Queensland for too many years. And I have a very clear directive from the Premier, which is to end that. And part of that is getting on with the job of finishing the projects that are in train now. Another part is ensuring that we address the drivers that are driving cost overruns.
Rocky Ring Road has exceeded budget again and that is unacceptable, but by the same token we’re focused on delivering the project. It’s an important project that will deliver benefit to, not just people from central Queensland but all road users who traverse through this part of the world. It’s a safety improvement. It takes trucks off the road through the Rockhampton CBD, where we’ve got schools right now, and I think 26 odd sets of traffic lights off the top of my head. It’s an important project that must be delivered. My focus is delivering that project now.
We were on site earlier this morning actually having a look at one of the bridge- bridges at the northern end. They were going to do a concrete pour this morning but they’ve been interrupted as a consequence of the rain. But we’re just focused on delivering the project now that it’s well advanced, and ending the blow-outs that existed under the former government. Minister, so you want to add anything to that?
CATHERINE KING: No.
JOURNALIST: When will it be delivered?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Well, we’re focused on delivering the project. The initial- so there’s two packages of works effectively at either end and the last package is for the centre which is for the bridge. We’re focused on ensuring that it’s delivered within the existing time frame. So at the moment, we’re working to a time frame of around 2029. However – and it is a complex project, I’m not going to shy away from the fact it’s a complex project. What we need to ensure, though, is that what we deliver reflects what the community needs, both here in central Queensland, and more broadly as a key spine of Queensland road- Queensland’s road transport network.
JOURNALIST: When will the funding come through for the [indistinct] project?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Well, Federal Minister, I think that’s included in this batch as well. I might let you talk to that.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. No, I think it is. Yeah.
BRENT MICKELBERG: So, I understand that’s actually included in these announcements from the Federal Government as well.
JOURNALIST: Can you tell us anything more about the beef corridor works?
BRENT MICKELBERG: Yeah. Look, the Queensland beef corridors initiative is a tremendous initiative which aims to build capacity and reliability into some of our inland routes which are traversed right through central Queensland here. So, it’s a partnership between local councils, the state government and the Federal Government. Minister King will probably like to speak to this, and Glen might like to talk to it given much of it sits in his electorate as well. But it’s a really important project that will both boost capacity for the beef industry, hence its name. But it’s also about building resilience and capacity into the- those regional interconnecting roads, roads between Moranbah and Emerald and Rockhampton, and to the south. These are critical roads that should have been invested in and need to be invested in to unlock both productivity from an economic perspective, but also connect regional communities. I might…
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, sure. We’ll get you a full list of the projects that have been announced under the beef roads corridor. But really, what this has required is for the local councils to work with TMR and the Queensland Government to decide where exactly the money is going to be spent.
So, we’ve signed off on the release of $38 million today to start a range of projects, small and large, across that network. We know that, increasingly, our large freight vehicles are travelling on these local roads and that whether it’s weather, that it’s the weight of vehicles, that it’s the volume of vehicles we’re seeing erosion on those roads. And really this is designed to strengthen, widen, make sure that our freight routes for your magnificent beef industry here, which is the best not only in the country but in the world – my hometown of Ballarat will be upset that I’ve said that, there are beef producers there as well – but nothing quite like up here. We recognise this is the beef capital for a reason. But making sure that that fantastic produce can get to market both within the country and outside, and so that $38 million.
But that’s really meant that we’ve got now local government all working together with TMR to identify where the money is to go. And that’s released today, and we’ll get you the full list.
BRENT MICKELBERG: Glen might add to it.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah.
GLEN KELLY: Yeah, thank. Well, thank you, Minister, for acknowledging the beef capital of Australia. It means a lot to me, actually. But no, the development package is very important to the electorate of Mirani because of the amount of produce that does come out of there, whether it be beef, or grain. And the May Downs Road is a very important part of that development project. It’s- we’re sort of talking up to, I think in a couple of those regions in the electorate of Mirani, 50,000 head of beef cattle coming out of two feedlots. I mean, this package is very welcome into this region of ours, of Mirani, and certainly looking forward to councils and the state government working together to make sure that where these issues are in these roads are done correctly. Because I’m a big believer in of a little bit of time goes a long way, because we only want to do these things once. And I think with this development road package it’s going to be so important to the electorate of Mirani. Thank you.
Source: United States Senator for Rhode Island Jack Reed
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, President Donald Trump fired the two Democratic commissioners on the five-member U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), an independent agency charged with enforcing consumer protection and antitrust laws. The unlawful move directly contradicts nearly a century of case law that has allowed the FTC to act solely in the public interest and free from short-term political considerations.
After the firings were reported, U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), the Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) Subcommittee, which oversees funding for the FTC, issued the following statement:
“This is an abuse of power and a blatant attempt to undermine the law and public good in order for Donald Trump to consolidate power for himself and his favored cronies. It would completely undercut the independence that Congress lawfully bestowed upon the FTC and subject Americans to higher prices, more frequent scams, and will breed unchecked anticompetitive consolidation. President Trump is flouting the rule of law in favor of the wealthiest Americans, causing economic instability, and putting the welfare of Americans at risk. If President Trump gets away with this move, there is nothing to stop him from paralyzing the FTC or weaponizing it, depending on who’s in power or what company is at issue. Removal of these FTC commissioners—solely because they are Democrats and not because they have done anything wrong—follows a pattern of this White House brazenly grabbing political power for itself. President Trump has also removed Democratic members of other multi-member boards and commissions dedicated to protecting labor rights, enforcing government ethics rules, and preventing violations of civil liberties. President Trump is trying to drag the country down a dead end that endangers citizens and consumers, prevents accountability, emboldens corruption and autocracy, and could bleed taxpayers dry. He is betting on a complaisant Supreme Court to validate this blatant executive overreach. I hope the Court has some backbone, asserts itself as a co-equal branch of government, and affirms the 90 years of established legal precedent prohibiting Trump’s actions today.”
The FTC is an independent agency created by Congress and led by a bipartisan panel of five commissioners – three selected from the president’s party and two from the minority party, and staffed nearly exclusively by nonpartisan experts, lawyers, and non-partisan civil servants who help safeguard the public interest. FTC employees do the highly complex and technical work that lawmakers do not have the expertise to perform themselves like devising rules, investigating complaints, and penalizing lawbreakers.
To insulate FTC commissioners from day-to-day political influence, by law they can be removed only for good cause like neglecting their official duties. But Trump hasn’t provided any reason or cause whatsoever for removing these commissioners.
FTC commissioners are unlike appointees who run executive departments directly under the president’s control, such as the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which has a single presidential cabinet official leading the department who is confirmed by the Senate and has wide latitude to work directly with the president to determine the direction of the agency. Notably, FTC commissioners are appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress for lengthy terms at staggered intervals in order to serve across multiple administrations. That continuity of service provides stability that benefits taxpayers and industry alike.
The Center for American Progress notes: “Independent agencies exist today, in large part, thanks to the Supreme Court’s foundational opinion in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States in 1935. In that case, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to fire FTC Commissioner William Humphrey because Roosevelt worried that Humphrey would block his policies. The FTC Act, however, only allowed commissioners to be fired for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or wrongdoing while in office (i.e., “for cause”). Congress felt that FTC commissioners needed to be insulated from politics in order to serve the American people. If commissioners were replaced after every presidential election, that would lead to a constant policy back and forth that would ultimately harm American consumers and undermine the agency’s mission.
“The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the president does not have unlimited power to fire independent agency heads. According to the court, Congress’ power to insulate independent agency heads from removal “cannot be doubted.” When agency heads perform “quasi-legislative” or “quasi-judicial” functions (i.e., policymaking or adjudicating), they are not exercising pure executive power, and thus the president does not have or need the ability to remove them at will. This case solidified independent agencies’ ability to serve the American people without fear of political reprisal.
“In 1958, the Supreme Court reinforced Humphrey’s Executor in Wiener v. United States. In another unanimous opinion, the court held that the president does not have unlimited removal powers: “no such power is given the President directly by the Constitution, and none is impliedly conferred upon him by statute.” The court again evaluated removal protections in Morrison v. Olson in 1988. In Morrison, the court approved the extension of removal protections from independent agency heads to lower executive branch officers without policymaking abilities. In a 7-1 opinion, the court held that the for-cause restriction did not violate the separation of powers because it did not “unduly trammel on executive authority.”
“Then, in 2020, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court indicated that there may be a small exception to Humphrey’s Executor. In Seila Law v. CFPB, the court narrowed Humphrey’s Executor by finding unconstitutional the for-cause removal protections for the Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, who manages the agency alone without fellow commissioners. In a 5-4 decision, the court held that removal protections for agency heads can only apply in two situations: 1) agencies with multimember commissioners and 2) agencies that do not wield substantial executive power. Seila Law adopted a more expansive vision of presidential power than Humphrey’s Executor and marked a troubling shift in the law for the millions of Americans who rely on independent agencies.”
Senator Reed noted Trump’s partisan dismissals of FTC commissioner are the latest instance of Trump wrongfully terminating critical federal employees without cause and trying to consolidate power for himself by turning independent federal watchdogs into lapdogs. The terminated commissioners indicate they plan to sue to reverse the firings. Senator Reed urged the federal courts and U.S. Supreme Court to expedite review of multiple cases moving through the system and to uphold the law.
The Israeli government vows to continue escalating these military attacks, claiming it is in response to Hamas’ refusal to extend the ceasefire, which has been in place since January 19.
But is this the real reason for pre-dawn attack? Or is there a much more cynical explanation — one tied to the political fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?
This week, New Zealand journalist Mohamed Hassan, host of the Middle East Eye’s weekly Big Picture podcast, speaks to Daniel Levy, the president of the US/Middle East Project and a former Israeli peace negotiator.
Ceasefire broken: Netanyahu is exposed. Video: Middle East Eye
When a ceasefire in the war between Hamas and Israel finally came into effect on January 19, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief.
However, that ceasefire agreement, and its associated negotiations, have now been cast aside by new Israeli attacks on Gaza.
A statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the strikes came after Hamas’ “repeated refusals” to “release our hostages”, and the group’s rejection of all proposals presented by US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Even before Israel cut off all humanitarian aid and electricity to Gaza in the past two weeks, Hamas claimed it had not met the levels of humanitarian aid, shelter and fuel it agreed to provide in the terms of the ceasefire. However, this is a distraction from a larger issue.
This ceasefire was always more like a strangle contract than a negotiated agreement between equal parties. Israel, as the party with far greater military and political power, has always had the upper hand.
And while the first phase of the ceasefire, which lasted 42 days, saw the successful release of 33 hostages held by Hamas in exchange for nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners, the ceasefire also enabled Israel to use it for its own political and military ends.
Buying time
The most common conventional concern about ceasefires is that the parties to a conflict will use them for their own ends.
Typically, the worry is that non-state armed groups, such as Hamas, will use the halt in violence to buy time to regroup, rearm and rebuild their strength to continue fighting.
But states such as Israel have this ability, too. Even though they have standing armies that might not need to regroup and rearm in the same way, states can use this time to manoeuvre in the international arena – a space largely denied to non-state actors.
Trump’s rise to power in the US has seemingly given the Israeli government carte blanche to proceed in ways that were arguably off limits to previous US presidents who were also largely supportive of Israel’s actions.
This includes the plan of forcing Gaza’s population out of the strip. This plan was raised earlier in the war by Trump advisor Jared Kushner and Israeli officials as a supposed humanitarian initiative.
Trump has now repeated the call to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan – or possibly other parts of Africa – and for the US to take “ownership” of the coastal strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
On the face of it, this plan would be a war crime. But even if it is never fully implemented, the fact it is being promoted by Trump after many years of domestic Israeli and international opprobrium shows how political ideas once thought unacceptable can take on a life of their own.
Political and military maneouvering
Israel has also used the ceasefire to pursue larger political and military goals in Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Syria.
Even though the ceasefire did reduce overall levels of violence in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out attacks on targets in the strip.
It has also escalated the construction of settlements and carried out increasingly violent operations in the West Bank. In addition, there have been egregious attacks on Palestinian residents in Israel.
And though nearly 1,800 Palestinian prisoners were released during the ceasefire, Israel was holding more than 9,600 Palestinians in detention on “security grounds” at the end of 2024. Thousands more Palestinians are being held by Israel in administrative detention, which means without trial or charge.
During the ceasefire, Israel also accelerated efforts to evict the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, from its headquarters in East Jerusalem. And the Israeli government has also proposed increasinglydraconian laws aimed at restraining the work of Israeli human rights organisations.
On the military front, the ceasefire arguably alleviated some pressure on Israel, giving it time to consolidate its territorial and security gains against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and in Syria.
In the past two months, two deadlines for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon passed. Israel has instead proposed establishing a buffer zone on Lebanese territory and has begun destroying villages, uprooting olive trees and building semi-permanent outposts along the border.
In a speech in February, Netanyahu also demanded the “complete demilitarisation of southern Syria” following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. And Defence Minister Israel Katz said this month Israel would keep its troops in southern Syria to “protect” residents from any threats from the new Syrian regime.
Be careful what you wish for
While Palestinians are known for their sumud – usually translated as steadfastness or tenacity – there is a limit to what humans can endure. The war, and subsequent ceasefires, have created a situation in which Gazans may have to put the survival and wellbeing of themselves and their families above their desire to stay in Palestine.
There is a general assumption that ceasefires are positive and humanitarian in nature. But ceasefires are not panaceas. In reality, they are a least-worst option for stopping the violence of war for often just a brief period.
A ceasefire was never going to be the solution to the decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Instead, it has turned out to be part of the problem.
Marika Sosnowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
All eight of the Security Bureau’s disciplined and auxiliary services will hold open days on weekends and holidays throughout April, dovetailing with the 10th National Security Education Day on April 15.
The open days will be held in the services’ training schools, museums, headquarters or divisional premises. They are targeted at deepening public understanding of the services and their work and achievements in safeguarding national security.
Activities will include flag raising ceremonies, Chinese-style foot drills, rescue demonstrations, displays of firearms and equipment, working dog demonstrations and game booths.
From today, interested parties can register for free tickets via the disciplined services’ websites or mobile applications. Tickets are not required for auxiliary service open days.
Issued for Williamstown, in the South Para Reservoir approximately 2km south of Williamstown township in the Mount Lofty Ranges.
CFS advises that a fire is burning in pine slash at the South Para Reservoir near South Para Road, approximately 2km south of the Williamstown township.
A warning message is current for this incident. Please refer to https://www.cfs.sa.gov.au/warnings-restrictions/warnings/incidents-warnings/ for up to date information.
CFS crews on 49 trucks are in attendance with the support of 8 aircraft, Forestry SA and Department for Environment and Water crews, and SAPOL. Farm Fire Units are also on the scene assisting the firefighting efforts. Crews are mopping up and will remain at the scene until the fire is fully extinguished.
Smoke from heavy timber on the fireground is visible in the area.
The cause of this fire is currently being investigated, but it is not believed to be deliberate.
South Para Road remains closed. Other road closures may be in place in and around the fireground. A full list of current road closures is available at: https://traffic.sa.gov.au/
To ensure your safety and that of firefighters and other emergency personnel who are working in the area, please do not enter the area unless necessary.
Due to the extended dry conditions, fires can easily start in vegetation from activities involving heavy machinery and equipment. Although this is not against the rules on a Total Fire Ban day, the community should be mindful of this when undertaking these activities.
More than 900 firefighters are ready and raring to compete in the 2025 CFA/VFBV State Firefighter Championships over the next two weekends.
Returning to Mooroopna Recreation Reserve, CFA’s junior running teams from across the state will showcase their skills this weekend for the Urban Junior State Championships on 22 and 23 March.
Next weekend will see the Senior Urban, Senior Rural and Junior Rural events on 29 and 30 March.
Running for the second year in a row, is Gisborne Fire Brigades junior team. Following a twelve-year hiatus, Gisborne is back stronger than ever, under the watchful eye of former runner and coach for the brigade Bruce Harker.
Bruce is passionate about the sport and ran for almost 45 years. He has been guiding Asher, Nick, Zack and Lincoln who recently won the under 17 aggregates at Geelong.
“This is the first time in the brigade’s history we have had a junior running team,” Bruce said.
“I’m quite pleased how they’ve gone this year and there is a lot of pride for me in the success of the team.
“The brigade has been running since the sixties, and we were unbeatable for a while. It’s great to have a team back competing.”
Asher Kroon one of the team’s founding members loves the sport and how many opportunities it has given him.
“I think everyone should do it, I have learnt a lot of valuable skills, especially the teamwork aspect,” Asher said.
“I love all the long drives and places I get to see as part of competing.”
Asher is confident the team will do well but also wants to see more people put their hand-up to participate.
“We’ve done really well this year and I think we should do well at State Championships, we are all excited!” Asher said.
“We only have four people which is the minimum to compete. Even though it isn’t a sport you’d normally consider we would love more people to join.”
CFA Chief Officer Jason Heffernan said the State Championships are an important tradition for CFA members and regional communities.
“The Championships are always one of my favourite events in the calendar. They are a great display of the skills, dedication and enthusiasm of our members in a fun environment,” Jason said.
“It’s always a great place to see the camaraderie among our brigades, their families and the broader community.
“I look forward to seeing our future fighters battle it out this weekend for a bit of healthy competition.”
Attendees can enjoy food and drink vans, firefighting equipment and training demonstrations, CFA programs and education hubs, award presentations and much more.
Events at the State Championships are based on practical firefighting activities, with a focus on physical fitness, teamwork and equipment skills using hoses, hydrants and other tools.
For more information and updates on the CFA/VFBV State Firefighter Championships visit www.cfa.vic.gov.au/champs.
Source: United States Senator for Massachusetts Ed Markey
Boston (March 18, 2025) – Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, released the following statement after Trump fired the Federal Trade Commission’s only two Democratic Commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya.
“For more than a century, the independent Federal Trade Commission has played a critical role in protecting American consumers and promoting competition. By attempting to illegally fire Commissioner Slaughter and Commissioner Bedoya, Trump is sending a clear message that he wants to Forget The Consumers and Fast Track Corruption. Make no mistake: These illegal actions are a sign of weakness, not strength. With the Trump administration imminently having a majority at the FTC, the only reason to fire the Democratic commissioners is to shut down dissent and hide his efforts to pad the pockets of his billionaire buddies. Trump is scared that the Democratic commissioners will unmask his radical and unpopular agenda.
“It won’t work. We won’t let the FTC stand for Favoring Trump’s Cronies—we’ll fight back against Trump’s unconstitutional actions to make sure the FTC can continue to protect all Americans from scams, fraud, and other online and offline threats.”
Source: United States Senator for Connecticut – Chris Murphy
WASHINGTON—U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Tuesday joined 36 of their Senate colleagues in sending a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon expressing outrage at the administration’s reckless and illegal firing of half of the workforce at the U.S. Department of Education. The senators condemned the mass layoffs— part of a broader effort by the Trump administration and Elon Musk to attack public education—warning that closing offices and cutting 1,300 jobs will devastate America’s schools and harm students across the country.
“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when 60 percent of people live paycheck to paycheck, millions of Americans cannot afford higher education, and 40 percent of our nation’s 4th graders and 33 percent of 8th graders read below basic proficiency, it is a national disgrace that the Trump Administration is attempting to illegally abolish the Department of Education and thus, undermine a high-quality education for our students,” the senators wrote.
The senators noted that these layoffs and closures will have devastating effects on the nation’s students, including by limiting the department’s ability to guarantee federal funding reaches communities that rely on it, ensure students can access federal financial aid, and uphold students’ civil rights. Not even 24 hours after the staff reductions were announced, the Free Application for Federal Financial Aid (FAFSA) experienced a glitch that prevented students and families from accessing the application. Education Department workers responsible for fixing it had reportedly been fired.
The senators continued: “[The layoffs] would also mean decreased enforcement of rights for children with disabilities and fewer resources for students from low-income backgrounds and children with disabilities, like the 26 million students from low-income backgrounds and over 100,000 public schools in every community across this country that rely on Title I funding; the 7.5 million students with disabilities who benefit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the 7 million students who receive Pell grants to help access higher education.”
In Connecticut, 1,000 K-12 schools and over 533,000 K-12 students, including those with disabilities, from low-income backgrounds, and English learners, rely on critical federal funding coming into Connecticut. Financial aid and support also support students across Connecticut attend and complete college including through $286 million in Pell Grants for 63,000 students in Connecticut and $19 billion in current and outstanding federal student loans supporting the education of 517,000 borrowers in Connecticut.
They concluded: “We will not stand by as you attempt to turn back the clock on education in this country through gutting the Department of Education. Our nation’s public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America’s leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so.”
U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Maize Hirono (D-Hawaii), Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Mark Warner (D-Va.), Chris Coons (D-Del.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) also signed the letter.
Full text of the letter is available HERE and below.
Dear Secretary McMahon:
We write to express our outrage that you, President Trump, and unelected billionaire Elon Musk are taking steps to abolish the Department of Education (“the Department”) and eliminate educational opportunities for millions of students across the country, something that 61 percent of Americans oppose. This most recently includes a 50 percent cut to the workforce, resulting in the termination of over 1,300 workers at the Department of Education, as well as the abrupt, last-minute closure of all Department of Education buildings beginning at 6:00 PM on the same day that these terminations were announced.
At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when 60 percent of people live paycheck to paycheck, millions of Americans cannot afford higher education, and 40 percent of our nation’s 4th graders and 33 percent of 8th graders read below basic proficiency, it is a national disgrace that the Trump Administration is attempting to illegally abolish the Department of Education and thus, undermine a high-quality education for our students.
As Secretary of Education, you are the foremost public servant responsible for carrying out the Department of Education’s mission to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access. Despite that responsibility, your first act as Secretary was announcing it was your “final mission” to dismantle the Department of Education, fire the public servants who keep it running, and terminate opportunities for students in public schools, colleges, and universities across the country.
The false claims of financial savings by dismantling the Department of Education so that billionaires can receive huge tax breaks is bad public policy and morally reprehensible. The billionaires that are in charge of our federal government right now will not be harmed by these egregious attacks: wealthy families sending their children to elite, private schools will still be able to get a quality education even if every public school disappears in this country. But for working-class families, high-quality public education is an opportunity they rely on for their children to have a path to do well in life.
Defunding federal support for public education would result in either higher property taxes or decreased funding for public schools, including in rural areas. It would also mean decreased enforcement of rights for children with disabilities and fewer resources for students from low-income backgrounds and children with disabilities, like the 26 million students from low-income backgrounds and over 100,000 public schools in every community across this country that rely on Title I funding; the 7.5 million students with disabilities who benefit under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the 7 million students who receive Pell grants to help access higher education.
It is undeniable that terminating 50 percent of the Department of Education’s workers will have harmful effects on public education in this country. The Department of Education already has the smallest staff of the 15 Cabinet agencies despite having the third largest discretionary budget, behind only the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services. These reductions will have devastating impacts on our nation’s students and we are deeply concerned that without staff, the Department will be unable to fulfill critical functions, such as ensuring students can access federal financial aid, upholding students’ civil rights, and guaranteeing that federal funding reaches communities promptly and is well-spent. Not even 24 hours after the staff reductions were announced, the Free Application for Federal Financial Aid (FAFSA) experienced a glitch that prevented students and families from accessing the application, but the staff normally responsible for fixing those errors had reportedly been cut. The Department has also reportedly shuttered several regional offices responsible for investigating potential violations of students’ civil rights in local schools. We are deeply alarmed that cases will go uninvestigated and that students will be left in unsafe learning environments as a result.
The Trump Administration also says it wants to ‘return education back to the states.’ Let us be very clear—public education is already run by states and local school boards. While just 11 percent of public education is federally funded, the Department of Education has a necessary and irreplaceable responsibility to implement federal laws that ensure equal opportunity for all children in this country. These laws guarantee fundamental protections, such as ensuring that children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, that students from low-income backgrounds and students of color will not be disproportionately taught by less experienced and qualified teachers, and that parents will receive information about their child’s academic achievement.
Without the Department of Education, there is no guarantee that states would uphold students’ civil and educational rights. Let us not forget that it was federal troops who protected the “Little Rock Nine” from a violent mob of segregationists when they integrated Central High School in the wake of the Brown v. Board U.S. Supreme Court decision. Not only was the state not going to provide this protection, but it was then-Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus who ordered the state’s National Guard to bar Black students from entering the school. Even today, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights regularly investigates and resolves complaints of student discrimination related to students’ race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability status.
We will not stand by as you attempt to turn back the clock on education in this country through gutting the Department of Education. Our nation’s public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America’s leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so.
Sincerely,
Source: Australian Ministers for Regional Development
DALES WHYTE [HOST]: Joining us in the studio at the moment is the Minister for, amongst other things, Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Local Government, the Honourable Catherine King. Good morning Catherine, how are you?
CATHERINE KING [MINISTER]: I’m well. And that was a very apt song. I haven’t met you yet either, but today we have. So there you go.
DALES WHYTE: The world is a better place.
CATHERINE KING: There you go.
DALES WHYTE: We have been asking people to give us a call, and they’ve been– look, there’s been bulk calls coming in the last 48 hours. Amazingly enough, or unexpectedly, we’ve got a lot of interest in what’s happening with the Bruce Highway. First call we got was soon after we knew you were coming. It was: when is work starting on the Bruce Highway?
CATHERINE KING: Good. Well, the first thing I can say is that today I’m here. The Bruce Highway Advisory Committee is in town today, and we are meeting together to talk about what the next tranche of projects. But I’m here with Brent Mickelberg as well. We’ll be announcing the first tranche of projects under the new $9 billion safety package. There’s 23 projects; 16 of those are construction projects. They will start shortly. They’re ready to go. Literally, the contracts are about to be signed, and a further planning for the next set of tranche of projects is underway. The advisory committee is advising both the Queensland and the federal government about where the problem areas are.
So, on that, we obviously have the motoring groups, we’ve got local representatives of local councils along the highway, truck drivers. And they’re the people who are going to try and tell us where we need to work first, because what we want to do is work on the worst bits of the road first and get those improvements. And that’s what we’re announcing today.
DALES WHYTE: I think that’s fabulous. I think that– I’ve got to say, and I said it earlier on the radio, I would have hoped that somebody from Transport and Main Roads, one of our great public servants, and we do have really good public servants in Queensland, would have been sitting down keeping an idea of the road areas that need working.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah, well they’ve started– so this first lot have come from TMR. So the first lot have come from TMR. And there’s that 15-year action plan for the Bruce that was developed some time ago. So it’s come from there. And then what we’re doing is using the advisory group to actually develop the next tranche of projects. So that’ll just keep rolling. So today, it’s about 300 million worth of projects that are being released, and that money is now being released. And that’s literally– we announced this money in January. And here we are not too far down the track and we’re actually getting on with it.
DALES WHYTE: We– yeah, we certainly do need it. I would like to have seen it done in January three years ago.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs]
DALES WHYTE: Another question …
CATHERINE KING: [Interrupts] I think all of it is. But, you know, to be blunt, to be political for a moment, it’s taking a Labor Government to get in and do it.
DALES WHYTE: No, don’t forget, the election coming up. You’re allowed to get in a free plug for yourself.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs]
DALES WHYTE: Is the immediate money available for both the Bruce Highway and the beef roads?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So also what we’re announcing today. So this beef roads has been extraordinarily frustrating to me. So, there’s a $500 million package for beef roads. And in essence, what we’ve been waiting for is the councils in the area with the Queensland Government to basically say, where are the roads that you want us to spend the money on? There’s one thing to say, here, we’re allocating money. So again today, $38 million is the first tranche of that. I’ve signed off on that money. Construction will start on those as well.
DALES WHYTE: Now, we have a little chestnut for you that I know you’re going to love.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs] OK.
DALES WHYTE: According to the Senate estimates hearing, $440 million of that $7 billion will be spent over the next three years on the Bruce Highway. What happened to the full 7 billion?
CATHERINE KING: Well, yeah. So this is this sort of nonsense. And I understand your local member has been touting this around. So estimates are estimates. Basically, what they do is they estimate. We think that according to where the schedule of where works is up to, this is where money will need to be released. Now, today we’re blowing that out of the water, to be quite honest, because we’re just releasing $300 million in the first three months. So what happens is Queensland will come forward to me. They do what’s called a project proposal report. They say we’re now ready to spend the money and then we just move money into– money moves in and out of the forward estimates all the time. You wouldn’t expect that I would put $7.2 billion in the first year and say, here you go, Queensland, off you go, you just can spend it wherever you like. I’m sure Queensland would love it if I did that.
DALES WHYTE: Well, we just want to spend it on this goat track.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs] Exactly. Well that’s why we’re doing it. So you’ve got to– you know, they’ve got to do the planning. They’ve got to come to me and say, here’s the report. This is how much it’s going to cost. This is– you know, we’re ready to go to tender. Can you release the money? And we just release the money. And that’s basically what happens with every project. There’s a reason they’re called estimates. They’re estimates of when we think projects will be ready and we move money in and out of them all the time.
DALES WHYTE: The proof will be in the pudding.
CATHERINE KING: Absolutely. Well, we’ve got 300 million being released today …
DALES WHYTE: [Talks over] I think that’s fabulous.
CATHERINE KING: … in three months.
DALES WHYTE: Now, this is a really important question. I have driven the Hume Highway on numerous occasions.
CATHERINE KING: Yes.
DALES WHYTE: I used to live in New South Wales. Don’t hold that against me.
CATHERINE KING: [Laughs]
DALES WHYTE: But …
CATHERINE KING: [Talks over]Well, I’m a Victorian, so I have driven on it too.
DALES WHYTE: My question is, it’s all concrete. It’s pretty much flood proofed. Why are we– why aren’t we doing that here?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So– I mean, different roads will need different conditions because of the amount of rain and weather. And again, I’m not an engineering expert, so I rely on the advice of TMR and the engineers to say this is what we’re doing. But one of the things we’ve been focused on– so we’ve got this safety package, this $9 billion, there is a further $10 billion of works that is already underway so that will continue. A lot of that is really big money, around flood proofing and building better. And so you can see that as the road improves slowly but surely a bit more down south that it has up this way, and partly what we’re trying to do now is focus on the central and the north bits of this to get that flood proofing as well. So those big projects will also still continue. And I think– again, Gladstone to Rockhampton we’ve got 188 million. I’ve just released that as well for that section of the road, so that money is in addition to the 9 billion. So, all of that’s happening. In terms of what surface you use and what treatment, really that’s up to the engineers. But our expectation is, from the Commonwealth’s point of view, is that we are building resilience into our infrastructure. There is no point building something and then it– the surface washes away. And it’s frustrating to me, and I know it’s frustrating to many of your listeners when that occurs. So that’s really what we’re focused on.
DALES WHYTE: And that’s– it’s really amazing. Of all the people that called us, it basically came down to the Bruce Highway.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Absolutely.
DALES WHYTE: So that gives you an idea of how important that is in our part of the world.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Well, it’s your major– like, it’s the only way you can travel around, between communities. It– absolutely. And we’ve understood that, we’ve always understood it. And it’s why we’re focused on trying to get this improved.
DALES WHYTE: You’ve brought your bucket of money with you. What else are you releasing today?
CATHERINE KING: Well, today also– so the Rocky Ring Road has been a really important project. I think if you’ve heard the Prime Minister talk about it, this is a project he promised back, I think with Kirsten Livermore way, way, way back. It’s taken a long time to get this project off the road. When we came to government, the tenders had come in at about 700 million more than were expected because it had been so delayed, frankly, under the previous government. It was going to cost more, we had to take some time to try and work out, well, how do we find that money? Can we get costs down at all? We found that money. There has been another cost pressure that would have been– the Queensland Government has reported. So, we’re adding another 200 million, taking the Commonwealth’s contribution to the Rocky Ring Road to $1.4 billion. It’s a big ring road. And so that money is being released again today as well. So making sure there was a view that we could scope it back a bit and not put that money in, we took the decision, we’ll put the 200 million in and the full scope of the Rocky Ring Road will proceed.
DALES WHYTE: Now, if I was a little bit dubious of politicians…
CATHERINE KING: [Talks over] No, you’re not like that at all. No, never. [Laughs]
DALES WHYTE: Never, not me. One could say, oh, this is just spending in time for the election. Why didn’t it happen earlier?
CATHERINE KING: Well, again, the cost overrun for that has only just been identified, so I didn’t know about it a year ago. If I’d known about it a year ago, we would have dealt with it. So it’s only just come to light that this cost pressure is there so we’re just doing that. In terms of the Bruce Highway, we’ve been working with both the previous Queensland Government and the new Queensland Government on what we could do next. We had 10 billion already on the table. Those projects were proceeding and continue to go. I’d always like them to happen much more quickly, to be blunt. I think it would be good if they happened much more quickly and we’d been working with them about what next, what do we need to do? And again, we sort of do it on a project by project basis. And so we needed them to come to us to say what it was that was needed. And once they did that, we stepped up.
DALES WHYTE: I’ve kept my questions to last. So are you– I’m running out now. I’m out of time, that is. 15-year plan for the Bruce Highway. We can’t wait 15.
CATHERINE KING: No, you definitely can’t. So what we’ve said with this 9 billion safety package, and the focus of this is doing what’s called– there’s a star rating system, but that basically looks at the safety of each of the big highways in particular. And it says that, really, the best– safest road is a five-star road. And that’s where you’ve got, dual lanes separated …
DALES WHYTE: Much like the Hume Highway.
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. Like that. Like– I’m trying to think, even in my home district, the Western Highway is a bit safer, but it’d probably be around four stars. It’s three in some parts as well, and down to two in others as well. So really what you’re trying to do is look at where is every single part of this that is at a two star, and we want to lift that up to three. If we can get it higher, we will. It will depend on the treatment. So you’ve got to widen shoulders. You’ve got to put grade separation in place. So you’re going to start to see that, we’ve said we’ll do that in eight years. That’s the plan is to get that done in eight years. If we can get it done sooner, we will. You’ve got a bit of a workforce shortage up here, unfortunately, at the moment. And there’s a lot happening, building everywhere. Olympics is going to put some strain on the labour force as well. And we’d like to get it done.
DALES WHYTE: And we want some of the Olympics up here.
CATHERINE KING: Well, that’ll be a matter for the Queensland Government’s review. You’ll be– I mean, you know it’s always tricky with these things. What you want to do is be able to make sure that you’ve got some facilities for people, for places to train, that you’ve got some legacy afterwards so that you’ve got sporting fields and facilities that people can use afterwards.
DALES WHYTE: Okay, here we go. The final question: is all this money going to happen no matter who wins the election?
CATHERINE KING: Yeah. So this is all in the budget. So the announcement we made of the 7.2 billion and then the Queensland Government made 1.8, that is already in the budget. But of course, when you’ve got an opposition looking for $351 billion of cuts, I can’t guarantee what they might cut. Let’s hope it’s not the Bruce.
DALES WHYTE: Well, I don’t think anyone would be game to cut the Bruce. And …
CATHERINE KING: Not if you’re on the case, mate. No.
DALES WHYTE: With respect to Peter Dutton, he is a Queenslander, so he knows better.
CATHERINE KING: I don’t know, he got confused between Yeppen and Yeppoon, so I don’t know about that.
DALES WHYTE: [Laughs] Oh well okay. Point taken. Well done. Minister King, thank you so much for your time. It’s always a pleasure and hopefully you won’t be a stranger.
CATHERINE KING: Never. I will come back anytime you’d like me to.
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew King, Associate Professor in Climate Science, ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather, The University of Melbourne
Climate change is the most pressing problem humanity will face this century. Tracking how the climate is actually changing has never been more critical.
Today, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) published its annual State of the Climate report, which found heat records kept being broken in 2024. It’s likely 2024 was the first year to be more than 1.5°C above the Earth’s pre-industrial average temperature. In 2024, levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit the highest point in the last 800,000 years.
The combination of heat and unchecked emissions, the organisation points out, had serious consequences. Attribution studies found a link between climate change and disasters such as Hurricane Helene, which left a trail of destruction in the southeastern United States, and the unprecedented flooding in Africa’s arid Sahel region.
Slowing these increasingly dangerous changes to Earth’s climate will require a rapid shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.
The record heat of 2024
From the North Pole to the South Pole, the oceans and our land masses, the report catalogues alarm bells ringing ever louder for Earth’s vital signs.
Steadily rising global average temperatures show us the influence of the extra heat we are trapping by emitting greenhouse gases. The ten warmest years on record have all happened in the past ten years.
The report shows 2024 was the warmest year since comprehensive global records began 175 years ago. The planet was an estimated 1.55°C (plus or minus 0.13°C) warmer than it was between 1850 and 1900.
Together, 2023 and 2024 marked a jump in global mean temperature from previous years. There was a jump of about 0.15°C between the previous record year (2016 or 2020 depending on the dataset) and 2023. Last year was even warmer – about 0.1°C above 2023.
Last year was the first year the planet was likely more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This doesn’t mean we have broken the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of holding warming under 1.5°C – temperatures would need to be sustained over a number of years to formally lose that fight. But it’s not good news.
There are a few extra factors at play in this record-breaking global temperature, including an El Niño event boosting eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures in the first part of 2024, falling pollution from shipping leading to less cloud over the ocean, and a more active sun as well.
Researchers are hard at work unpicking why the Earth’s average temperature jumped in 2023 and 2024. But it is clear the 2024 record-breaking warmth and most other damning statistics in the report would not have occurred if it wasn’t for human-induced climate change.
Much of the Northern Hemisphere was more than 2°C warmer in 2024 than 1951-1980 levels and many equatorial areas saw new annual temperature records. NASA GISS, CC BY-NC-ND
Carbon dioxide up, glacial melt up, sea ice down
It’s not just global temperatures breaking records.
Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached 427 parts per million last year. Sea level rise has accelerated and is now about 11 centimetres above early 1990s levels, and the oceans are at their highest temperatures on record.
Seasonal sea-ice in the Arctic and around Antarctica shrank to low levels (albeit short of record lows) in 2024, while preliminary data shows glacial melt and ocean acidification continued at a rapid pace.
Almost all parts of the world were much warmer in 2024 than even recent averages (1991–2020) and much of the tropics experienced record heat.
From cyclones to heatwaves, another year of extreme events
In the English-speaking media, extreme events affecting North America, Europe and Australia are well covered, such as the devastating Hurricane Helene in the US and the lethal flash flooding in Spain.
By contrast, extreme weather and its fallout in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia get less coverage.
In September 2024, Super Typhoon Yagi killed hundreds and caused widespread damage through the Philippines, China and Vietnam. Later in the year, Cyclone Chido struck Mayotte and Mozambique causing more than 100,000 people to be displaced. Hundreds died in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan due to spring floods following an unusual cold wave.
Much of South and Central America was hit by significant drought. Huge tributaries to the Amazon River all but dried up for the first time on record. Severe summer heat hit much of the Northern Hemisphere, while more than 1,300 pilgrims died during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca as heat and humidity pushed past survivable limits.
Globally, extreme weather forced more people from their homes than any other year since 2008, which had widespread floods and fires.
Did climate change play a role in these extreme events? The answer ranges from a resounding yes in some cases to a likely small role in others.
Scientists at World Weather Attribution found the fingerprints of climate change in Hurricane Helene’s large-scale rain and winds as well as the flooding rains in the eastern Sahel.
Paying the price for decades of inaction
This report is a dire score card. The numbers are sobering, scary but sadly, not surprising.
We have known the basic mechanism by which greenhouse gases warm the planet for over 100 years. The science behind climate change has been around a long time.
But our response is still not up to the task.
Currently, our activities are producing ever more greenhouse gas emissions, trapping more heat and causing more and more problems for people and the planet. Every fraction of a degree of global warming matters. The damage done will keep worsening until we end our reliance on fossil fuels and reach net zero.
Andrew King receives funding from the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather and the National Environmental Science Program.
Linden Ashcroft has received funding from the Australian Research Council and is affiliated with the ARC Centre of Excellence for 21st Century Weather
Most older Australians recently surveyed by Flinders University would not follow the Country Fire Services’ advice regarding catastrophic fire danger days.
“With bushfires expected to become more frequent, severe, and destructive in residential areas, preparation is crucial for saving lives and reducing financial losses,” says report lead researcher Professor Beverley Clarke, a geographer in the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
“Older Australians have unique challenges in disaster preparedness due to potential mobility or health issues and limited familiarity with digital emergency communication tools.
“However, our study also found that many older Australians also possess strong community ties and historical knowledge of past bushfire events, which greatly impacts how they understand and respond to the advice.”
Looking to understand their preparedness for a bushfire and responses to early warning messages, the researchers interviewed 61 older residents in three high-risk regions in South Australia – the Adelaide Hills, the Coorong, and the Yorke Peninsula – as well as aged care service providers and emergency responders.
“On catastrophic fire days, emergency services advise that the safest option is to leave the threatened region in advance, either the night before or early in the morning, but only 10 percent of those we spoke to indicated they would heed that advice,” says report co-author Professor Kirstin Ross, a professor of environmental health in the College of Science and Engineering.
“Many indicated they planned to stay until the fire posed an immediate threat, citing the desire to protect their home, uncertainty about evacuation destinations and logistical difficulties such as pets and mobility issues as reasons to stay.
“Warning fatigue from past alerts that did not result in fires was also highlighted as a reason to delay evacuations.”
The study found the few participants who did express willingness to leave early were influenced by adequate insurance coverage, personal experience with bushfires, exposure to compelling survivor testimonies, recognition of personal physical limitations, or, access to clear and practical information.
A significant gender divide also emerged, with women more inclined to evacuate early, while men were more committed to staying and defending their property.
The researchers also investigated residents’ bushfire action plans, finding while most had some kind of plan very few had a written plan.
Several factors prevented the formulation of written plans including challenges accessing electronic communication, such as limited internet access or outdated devices, and limited recall of where to access emergency service information.
“Many participants found bushfire preparedness information overwhelming and confusing, or found the generalised nature of the messaging not resonating with them,” says sociologist Dr Zoei Sutton, another researcher involved in the study in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
“Yorke Peninsula participants in particular highlighted they did not have a clear, reliable safer place to evacuate to on a catastrophic fire danger day, adding to the complexity of their planning.”
Many residents said they relied on informal networks such as family and community members for guidance and decision-making around when to leave ahead of a bushfire.
The researchers say their report highlights the need for more tailored bushfire preparedness messaging that takes into account differing geographic and social factors.
“Older Australians have a wealth of knowledge and much experience to offer. If we involve them in production of messaging it may resonate better with them, and we may see more older residents heed warnings and leave bushfire prone locations much earlier on catastrophic fire danger days,” says Professor Clarke.
“Australia’s population is ageing, and the risk of bushfires is increasing. It is important vulnerable members of the community have access to meaningful messaging that is clear, practical and engaging. This will improve bushfire resilience that will ultimately save lives.”
The team was assisted by South Australia’s Country Fire Service to undertake the research.
In fact, Trump’s latest phone call with Putin seemingly didn’t amount to any substantive changes, except for an apparently short-lived Russian agreement to refrain from targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — a concession that might actually benefit Russia.
The winter, when Ukraine is most vulnerable to Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, is almost done. Russia’s dependence on energy exports to support its war effort, however, remains constant, and any Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities will be framed as a breach by Russian authorities.
Russia exploiting Trump’s desire for peace at any cost will probably be an ongoing trend.
The U.S. is playing an important role in peace negotiations. Under former president Joe Biden, this was due to the fact that the U.S. provided Ukraine with arms and moral support.
This development places Zelenskyy in a political bind. The U.S. in the past provided most of the military aid to Ukraine and the relationship between the Ukrainian leader and Trump is acrimonious.
As such, even if Zelenskyy doesn’t agree with American ceasefire proposals, he must give the appearance of agreement or risk permanently alienating the mercurial Trump. Putin, in the meantime, will exploit any Ukrainian-American tensions.
Current military situation
The first year of the current phase of the Ukraine-Russia war was marked by mobility as both Russia and Ukraine made considerable advances and counteroffensives.
Many analysts argue that such a war favours Russia. Wars of attrition are defined by slow, grinding advances whereby large casualties are a necessary byproduct for success. Given Russia’s material and personnel advantages, it can afford to suffer higher casualties.
For the past several months, Russian forces have been making slow, steady advances against Ukrainian positions. Russia has suffered significant casualties in these advances, and they may not be sustainable over the long term.
Putin is gambling that Ukraine’s and the international community’s will to fight will be broken by the time this is an issue. Trump’s push for a ceasefire at any cost suggests Putin may have a point.
Any immediate ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine would leave Ukraine occupying Russian soil in the Kursk region, which Russia cannot accept.
Russia’s immediate goal
Ukraine’s 2024 incursion into the Kursk region provided the country and its people with a necessary respite from the war of attrition. Ukrainian forces, attacking an under-defended and unprepared part of the Russian front line, made significant advances into Russia.
Ukraine’s ability to maintain territory around Kursk has also proven to be an embarrassment for Putin and the Russian establishment.
Putin recently said Russian forces encircled Ukrainian forces in the salient, although Ukraine denies it. Regardless of the statement’s validity, it speaks to the importance both parties attach to the battle.
Russia’s reputation
This issue highlights a particular problem for the Russian leadership. Russia has done its utmost to frame its so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine as a success. An example is Russia’s formal annexation of four Ukrainian areas in 2022, despite not actually possessing the territory at the time.
Any perception of the invasion of Ukraine as a failure is a non-starter for a Russian government concerned about its domestic standing.
Ukraine possessing Russian territory, however, leads to questions in Russia about the war’s success. Ukraine, in exchange for relinquishing any Russian territory it seized during the war, would undoubtedly seek the return of Ukrainian territory.
Russia has not even achieved its minimal goals of seizing the four Ukrainian regions it’s officially annexed. Therefore, it’s unlikely Putin would ever agree to the exchange of the territory it has actually already seized in exchange for the Kursk salient.
Putin is following the Russian playbook of negotiating from strength. So long as Ukraine maintains Kursk, Russia will not negotiate in good faith.
While Kursk is the most prominent area of Russia concern, there are other conditions that will become important in the future as Putin seeks to improve Russia’s negotiating position.
It’s a lesson that Trump will soon learn, despite any and all efforts he or his administration make to frame things positively.
James Horncastle does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today issued a statement after the Trump Administration unlawfully fired two Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioners. The FTC was created by Congress in 1914 with the Federal Trade Commission Act, which allows a president to remove a commissioner only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the president’s removal powers do not go beyond what Congress authorized. Congress created the FTC to protect consumers and market competition — as such, the FTC is responsible for enforcing laws that touch virtually every area of commerce and targets its enforcement efforts at practices that cause the greatest harm to consumers. California regularly collaborates with the FTC to protect consumers, workers, and the market by bringing enforcement actions that check the power of corporations acting illegally.
“The Trump Administration’s illegal firing of the two Commissioners is extremely concerning. Consumer protection and antitrust are not political — they are about protecting working families and helping ensure the benefits of a vibrant economy are for everyone,” said Attorney General Bonta. “Time and time again, California has benefitted from the FTC’s collaboration and coordination in bringing enforcement actions and taking other measures to safeguard Americans nationwide, regardless of who is in the White House.”
Palestinians mourn for victims who were killed by Israeli airstrikes at a hospital in Gaza City on March 18, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]
The Palestinian death toll from the Israeli airstrikes on various places across the Gaza Strip early Tuesday morning has risen to 413, the Gaza-based health authorities said.
In a press statement, the health authorities said that the ongoing Israeli attacks also injured at least 562 Palestinians.
The statement added that a number of victims are still trapped under the rubble and efforts are underway to retrieve them.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military and Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency said Tuesday afternoon that they were continuing to strike Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets across Gaza.
“At this time, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and Shin Bet are striking terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip,” the military and Shin Bet said in a joint statement, adding that “the targets struck over the past few hours include terrorist cells, launch posts, weapons stockpiles, and additional military infrastructure.”
Israel said it was resuming strikes because of Hamas’ repeated refusals to release its hostages and its rejection of all offers it received from the U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and mediators.
Hamas accused Israel of violating the ceasefire that took effect on Jan. 19 and called on mediators to pressure Israel to halt the military campaign.
U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call on Tuesday that the peace in Ukraine “will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire.”
Meanwhile, they agreed to “immediately” launch technical negotiations on the implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, as well as on the full ceasefire and permanent peace in Ukraine, the White House said in a statement.
“These negotiations will begin immediately in the Middle East,” said the statement, noting the two leaders agreed that the three-year Ukraine conflict needs to end with a lasting peace.
The two leaders stressed the need for improved U.S.-Russia relations, said the statement. Further details are not immediately available, but U.S. media outlets, citing Russian sources, said they spoke in favor of normalizing relations between the two countries.
It is not immediately clear the response of Ukraine to the limited and phrased ceasefire plan. Kiev has said it is ready to accept the 30-day truce proposed by Trump.
Ahead of the phone talk, Trump said, “Many elements of a Final Agreement have been agreed to, but much remains.”
The mess over Ukraine “will almost certainly not be resolved in a phone call, if at all,” an analyst with the Fox News said.
