Australia news live: NT police still seek answers over 25 year-old murder of British backpacker Peter Falconio

• Ethiopia is currently navigating a turbulent environment shaped by overlapping conflicts, geopolitical rivalries, and significant economic risks. • The situation highlights the limitations of diplomacy, as weak trust between major international actors hinders the resolution of regional crises.

• A shipment of dialysis equipment intended for 44,000 patients has finally arrived in Iran after being detained by the United States for 95 days. • The eight-container shipment was held starting on April 20 before its eventual release.

• Israel has officially rejected a Gaza peace plan proposed by Donald Trump, signaling continued diplomatic friction over the region's future. • New details have emerged regarding tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, highlighting increased military volatility in a critical global shipping lane.

Jane Coates says foreign secretary should draw attention to coroner’s finding that Lucy Harrison was unlawfully killedThe UK foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is being urged to push US authorities to reopen an investigation into a man who shot dead his 23-year-old British daughter while she was visiting him in Texas.Lucy Harrison, from Warrington in Cheshire, was fatally shot on 10 January 2025, the day before she was due to fly home to the UK. Continue reading...

Israeli PM is insisting on a full Hamas disarmament before the deal can be implemented. Plus, what it feels like to get locked in to an opera performance that lasts nearly 24 hoursGood morning.Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza in a rare public break with Donald Trump. In a statement, Israel’s prime minister said he was confronting a “wave of rumours about Israeli weakness and Israeli withdrawals on all fronts” and rebuked US pressure to end wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran without Israel’s buy-in.What other developments have happened in the region? Iran has issued tough new demands for reopening the strait of Hormuz, while the United Arab Emirates said one of its ships was targeted by an Iranian missile over the weekend. Tehran said the strait of Hormuz would not open until the US “corrects its behaviour”. Yemen’s Tehran-aligned Houthis have claimed responsibility for an attack on a refinery in Saudi Arabia on Sunday morning.What impact is the conflict having on seafarers in Hormuz? The US-Iran war has stranded up to 20,000 seafarers, mostly Indian and Filipino crews, with none knowing when the nightmare will end. Seventeen seafarers have died since hostilities began, the majority following Iranian strikes.What sort of exercises did they take part in? Justin Vail, who leads the DC office of the non-partisan advocacy group Protect Democracy, said: “These tabletop exercises are a standard planning tool for experts and stakeholders to prepare for potential scenarios. We’re not predicting exactly what would happen. But we do want to create a realistic context that can help us identify gaps, test our assumptions, and strengthen coordination, and then ultimately develop some recommendations to increase our preparedness.”How has Trump been working to undermine confidence in US elections? Voting rights advocates pointed toward Trump’s July primetime address as indicative of the president’s intentions – rhetorical attacks on the integrity of voting machines and elections offices, potentially escalating into more direct interference. Trump threatened the broadcast licenses of networks that refused to carry that address live, and in his speech, he again implored Congress to pass the Save America Act, which would ban mail-in ballots nationwide and impose new identification requirements on voters when they register and report to polls. Continue reading...

Exclusive: Film-maker Gabar Choli describes how he endured coercive treatment over eight months in detention in TexasA Kurdish man who was force fed over the course of eight months while on hunger strike in US immigration detention has spoken out about it for the first time, describing how much the process harmed him physically and psychologically.Gabar Choli, a film-maker and activist now living in Canada after being deported, described how he endured the coercive treatment – a practice widely considered torture by international human rights groups – often twice a day after being detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when his asylum application was denied. Continue reading...

Gabar Choli tells of how, for months, he was shackled, pinned and forcibly fed – and the physical and emotional scars the ordeal has leftIn June 2025, a sluggish and thin Gabar Choli, with sunken temples and bones visible under his skin, braced himself for the immigration detention center guards to charge into his cell once again.Choli was in a solitary confinement medical cell inside the Port Isabel service processing center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in south Texas where immigrants arrested in Donald Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown are detained. Continue reading...

Melissa Donnelly, the national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, will replace the outgoing ACTU headGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastMelissa Donnelly, the national secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union, will take on the role as the next head of the trade movement in Australia, after the resignation of Sally McManus.The Australian Council of Trade Unions’ secretary and its president, Michele O’Neil, revealed last month they would be stepping down after eight years together as the first all-female leadership team in the ACTU’s 99-year history, playing a major role in shaping the Albanese government’s workplace agenda. Continue reading...

Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group is frontrunner to buy Knightsbridge-headquartered department store chainCan Harvey Nichols find its way back to being Ab Fab again?Business live – latest updatesHarvey Nichols has warned that it will not be able to survive another year without new investment, as bidders for the Knightsbridge-headquartered department store chain circle.The retailer’s Hong Kong-based owner, Dickson Poon, put it up for sale in June, with Mike Ashley’s Frasers Group aiming to buy it for about £40m. Continue reading...

Prosecutors to argue that Duane ‘Keffe D’ Davis ordered killing and provided gun in Las Vegas drive-by shooting of rapperThe trial is to begin of a former gang leader over the decades-old killing of the rapper Tupac Shakur, one of the most high-profile unresolved murders in the US.The proceedings, which begin in Las Vegas on Monday and are expected to last a month, are unlikely to make clear who fired the shots that killed the hip-hop legend on 7 September 1996 while he was in the city to see a Mike Tyson boxing match. Continue reading...

The heat and continuing dry conditions are being supercharged by the escalating climate crisisThe National Drought Group (NDG) is expected to meet this afternoon and declare that more parts of England are officially in drought, as parts of the UK head into a potential fifth heatwave of the year this week.All of Wales and more than half of England are already in drought after an unprecedented period of dry, hot weather over the summer. Continue reading...

Drought and wildfires intensify across continent, while tropical storms bring heavy rain and disruption to east AsiaEurope live – latest updatesHigh pressure has dominated central and eastern Europe in early August, breaking temperature records across the region. Austria recorded a high of 41.2C (106.2F), while Slovakia reached 42.2C. Hungary hit a peak of 41.8C, surpassing a record set in 1905, while overnight temperatures remained above 28C in some areas, marking it as a tropical night.The extreme temperatures have been driven by a heat dome beneath the high-pressure system, which traps warm air close to the surface. Continue reading...