The minor party have announced an election policy for the federal expansion of pill testing. Follow today’s news live
Chalmers offers no comment on possibility of interest rate cut in December
Chalmers wouldn’t be drawn on whether Australia’s weak GDP growth means the Reserve Bank (RBA) will reduce interest rates when its board next meets on 10 December.
Well, I would say about that, that the Reserve Bank, when it meets, will weigh up all of this data, as they usually do.
They’ll come to a decision independently. They’ll do that with me, without me pre-empting [it].
I do acknowledge that the economy is very weak and people are under a lot of pressure.
And if you look at those quite difficult set of figures that were released yesterday, there were some encouraging elements.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/04/2024 - 15:17
US says current climate rules are satisfactory, prompting condemnation from activists and vulnerable countries
Climate justice campaigners have condemned the US after the world’s largest historic greenhouse gas emitter argued against countries being legally obliged to combat the climate crisis.
The US intervention came on Wednesday as part of the historic climate hearing at the international court of justice (ICJ) in The Hague, where island nations and other climate-vulnerable countries are calling for wealthy polluting nations most responsible for climate breakdown to be held legally responsible.
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12/04/2024 - 13:09
Mary Lawlor criticizes US’s failure to respond to concerns after Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal charges
A leading UN human rights expert has expressed dismay after the US government failed to respond to questions about the criminal crackdown on peaceful climate protesters.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, on Tuesday published a letter sent to US authorities raising concerns about the potential violation of international human rights law after two climate activists, Alex Connon and John Mark Rozendaal, were charged with crimes that carried lengthy jail terms.
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12/04/2024 - 11:00
AI program GenCast performed better than ENS forecast at predicting day-to-day weather and paths of hurricanes and cyclones
For those who keep an eye on the elements, the outlook is bright: researchers have built an artificial intelligence-based weather forecast that makes faster and more accurate predictions than the best system available today.
GenCast, an AI weather program from Google DeepMind, performed up to 20% better than the ENS forecast from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), widely regarded as the world leader.
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12/04/2024 - 10:00
Native leaders ready for a fight as Trump calls ANWR, one of the last truly wild places on Earth, the US’s ‘biggest oil farm’
The Arctic national wildlife refuge (ANWR) is one of the earth’s last intact ecosystems. Vast and little-known, this 19m-acre expanse along Alaska’s north slope is home to some of the region’s last remaining polar bears, as well as musk oxen, wolves and wolverines. Millions of birds from around the world migrate to or through the region each year, and it serves as the calving grounds for the porcupine caribou.
Donald Trump has called the refuge the US’s “biggest oil farm”.
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12/04/2024 - 09:00
Testing found acute lead toxicosis as cause of death of two lorikeets, a honeyeater and three grey-headed flying foxes in Port Pirie
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Dozens of native birds and flying foxes have been killed by “acute” lead poisoning in the South Australian regional town of Port Pirie, with contamination fears in the town that is home to one of the world’s largest lead smelters.
Earlier this year locals in the 17,600-person town raised the alarm when they began to find dead native birds and flying foxes in large numbers in parks and green spaces, with subsequent testing of several animals showing they died from acute lead poisoning.
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12/04/2024 - 07:00
Research shows common air pollutants can be detrimental to egg, sperm and embryo development
Maternal and paternal exposure to common air pollutants may increase the risk of infertility because it can be detrimental to egg, sperm and embryo development, new research in the US finds.
Previous papers have established that air pollution exposure probably contributes to infertility, but it has been unclear whether the toxins affected men or women because both parents face similar exposures. That also made it difficult to establish when in the conception process damage occurred.
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12/03/2024 - 17:30
Exclusive: With Brazil’s politicians, agribusiness organisations and global traders piling on the pressure, the highly successful 2006 Soy Moratorium is under threat
One of the cornerstones of Amazon rainforest protection – the Soy Moratorium – is under unprecedented pressure from Brazilian agribusiness organisations, politicians, and global trading companies, the Guardian has learned.
Soy is one of the most widely grown crops in Brazil, and posed a huge deforestation threat to the Amazon rainforest until stakeholders voluntarily agreed to impose a moratorium and no longer source it from the region in 2006.
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12/03/2024 - 15:44
Plant species can fulfill different functions within an ecosystem, even if they are closely related to each other. This surprising conclusion was reached by a global analysis of around 1.7 million datasets on plant communities. The findings overturn previous assumptions in ecology.
12/03/2024 - 15:39
Bird wing shape -- a proxy for long-distance flying ability, or dispersal -- is a trait that influences biodiversity patterns on islands around the world, according to biologists.
