US President Donald Trump, a strong critic of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, is planning an imminent visit to the central bank.

Trump has lambasted Powell repeatedly for not cutting US interest rates more aggressively, referring to him as a “numbskull” and musing publicly about firing him.

The White House has released a schedule to media saying Trump would visit the Federal Reserve on Thursday.

The schedule did not say whether Trump would be meeting with Powell.

A Federal Reserve official did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

White House deputy chief of staff James Blair said earlier this week that administration officials would be visiting the Fed on Thursday but did not say the president would join.

Trump’s visit represents an acceleration of the pressure he and his advisers have put on Powell and the bank, traditionally viewed as an independent institution.

Several Australian women allegedly forced to submit to invasive strip searches at Doha’s Hamad airport have been given the go ahead to sue Qatar Airways after a “long and stressful struggle”.

The five women, who cannot be legally named, were among hundreds of women alleged to have been forcibly removed from aircraft at Doha on October 2, 2020 as officials searched for the mother of a newborn found in a bathroom at the terminal.

Taken off planes by armed guards, many allege they were forced to conduct non-consensual gynaecological or intimate physical examinations.

One passenger was forced to undergo a strip search holding her five-month old son, the lawsuit claims. 

Another, who is elderly and legally blind, was directed out of the aircraft but was not subject to a search.

The women, three of whom were allegedly subjected to invasive searches, launched legal action against Qatar Airways, the airport operator and the government-owned Qatar Civil Aviation Authority. 

After an initial ruling barred them from pursuing the airline and the QCAA, the Federal Court ruled on Thursday that the suit against Qatar Airways and the airport operator could continue.

The women’s lawyer Damian Sturzaker said his clients were relieved with their win after “a very long and stressful struggle to bring this to court”.  

“Unfortunately the case against the state of Qatar was unsuccessful, however this has always been an issue against the airline,” he said outside court.

“We’ve now got an opportunity to have a full hearing with all of (the women’s) evidence coming out and, in those circumstances, we’re very very pleased with the outcome today.”

The women are seeking compensation for mental stress, for alleged assault and for the alleged false imprisonment during the airport incident nearly five years ago. 

They claim the airline and the airport operator were negligent and breached their duty of care to passengers who were forced off the plane and subjected to searches. 

A judge previously dismissed the women’s claims against Qatar Airways as having no prospect of success because the searches didn’t occur when disembarking or embarking the plane. 

However, the Full Court determined on Thursday there was “no sufficiently high degree of certainty” that was the case and ruled it is an issue that should be decided at trial. 

Chief Justice Debra Mortimer, Justice Angus Stewart, Justice Stephen Stellios upheld the primary ruling that the women could not sue the QCAA because it has immunity as an entity of a foreign state. 

Qatar Airways was ordered to pay the legal bill accrued by the women during the appeal. 

The court battle between the two parties is not expected to be heard this year. 

Outside court, Mr Sturzaker said he was confident in his steadfast clients’ case against the airline and the airport operator. 

“They always would have liked to see a resolution to the matter but if that can’t be achieved then of course the matter will go to hearing,” he said. 

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A historic international court ruling could open the door to Australia being sued by its Pacific neighbours over inaction on climate change.

The International Court of Justice at The Hague in the Netherlands has stated countries have an obligation to prevent climate change harm and redress damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The non-binding advisory opinion has significant ramifications for Australia, Climate Council CEO Amanda McKenzie said.

“The decision will reverberate across the world and around Australia – in courtrooms, boardrooms, parliaments and international negotiations,” she said.

“The court makes it crystal clear that all countries have significant legal responsibilities to prevent further climate harm by slashing their climate pollution rapidly and deeply.”

The international court’s opinion was unprecedented in breadth and future precedent, Australian National University international law expert Donald Rothwell said.

“The court’s opinion will pave the way for political and diplomatic exchanges between climate change-impacted states and large polluting states over reparations,” Prof Rothwell said.

“If settlements are not reached there is now a clearer pathway forward for international climate litigation by the specially impacted states.”

Importantly, all states – not just signatories to the Climate Change Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement – would face obligations under the court’s advice.

While no judgment had been issued, advisory opinions could still be very influential in the interpretation and development of international law.

“In this way, the ICJ advisory opinion does not only clarify existing rules, it creates legal momentum,” said Sebastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center For International Environmental Law

“It reshapes what is now considered legally possible, actionable, and ultimately enforceable.”

ActionAid Australia executive director Michelle Higelin said the ruling was clear.

“Australia must do all it can to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees,” she said

“This is not a choice, this is an obligation to take stronger and more urgent action.”

ActionAid wants the government to “urgently” transition away from fossil fuels and increase funding to low-income countries, including those in the Pacific, to support climate adaptation efforts.

Oxfam climate change policy lead Nafkote Dabi agreed.

“Rich countries have to increase their financing to Global South countries to help them reduce emissions and protect their people from past and future harm,” Ms Dabi said.

“This is not a wish-list – it is international law.”

Global science and policy institute, Climate Analytics, which has an Australia-Pacific region office, said the finding foreshadowed potentially serious legal penalties.

Action could be taken under customary international law if countries climate targets undershoot the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Australia’s current commitment to the Agreement includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

The court’s finding came after a campaign spearheaded by Vanuatu University law students and backed by Vanuatu’s government, arguing Pacific island countries unjustly bore the brunt of climate change compared to high-emitting economies.

“The degradation of the climate system and of other parts of the environment impairs the enjoyment of a range of rights protected by human rights law,” presiding judge Yuji Iwasawa said, handing down the court’s opinion.

The court decision “confirms that states’ obligations to protect human rights require taking measures to protect the climate system … including mitigation and adaptation measures,” Judge Hilary Charlesworth, an Australian member of the court, said in a separate opinion.

A response is being sought from the federal government.

Vanuatu Minister for Climate Change Adaptation Ralph Regenvanu described the court’s opinion as a “very important course correction in this critically important time”.

“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity,” he said at The Hague.

A post-pandemic surge of international students contributed to rents spiking but was not a major inflation driver, central bank research finds.

Large swings in foreign student numbers have a particularly strong effect on housing costs, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, the researchers said in a paper published on Thursday.

That’s because the market has a limited ability to quickly add new supply to meet rapid increases in demand, due to constraints such as skills shortages and approval delays.

The international student population jumped from 357,919 in 2022 to 608,262 at the end of the 2024 financial year, following a drop in enrolments during the pandemic, according to research from conservative think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

Rental costs were disproportionately affected because international students are more likely to rent than the general population.

As a “back-of-the-envelope” metric, every 100,000 additional international students in Australia would increase rents by 0.5 per cent compared to the counterfactual, the Reserve Bank of Australia study found.

That means rents grew about 1.25 per cent faster than they otherwise would have if the international student population had not grown by 250,000 from 2022 to 2024.

The effect may have been greater than that, given the especially tight rental market during that period, with the vacancy hitting a record low of 0.7 per cent in February 2024, according to Domain.

But its still a drop in the bucket compared to the overall growth in rents in recent years.

Rents have jumped more than 40 per cent in the past five years to reach a national average of $665 per week, according to property research firm Cotality.

The RBA report found the rise in international students likely only accounted for “a small share of the rise in rents since the onset of the pandemic, with much of the rise in advertised rents occurring before borders were reopened”.

“The increase in international students was just one of many other forces at play in this time that drove demand above supply in the economy, and hence higher inflation,” the authors said.

“For instance, supply-side factors were the biggest driver of the increase in inflation in 2022 and 2023, while strong domestic demand arising from supportive fiscal and monetary policy also played an important role.”

Prospective homebuyers hoping for lower mortgage rates could get a clearer indication of the RBA’s next move on Thursday when governor Michele Bullock speaks for the first time since a surprise surge in unemployment data last week.

Ms Bullock will talk about the central bank’s dual mandate of maintaining low inflation and unemployment in a speech to the Anika Foundation in Sydney.

Shares in Asia have rallied and the Australian dollar has hit an eight-month high as optimism over earnings and trade supported demand for higher yielding assets.

Tokyo’s broad Topix gauge of shares hit an all-time high, following new records on Wall Street overnight, after a trade pact between Japan and the US stoked speculation more deals would appear soon to head off sweeping tariffs. Nasdaq and S&P futures rose after results by Google parent Alphabet beat estimates to kick off the “Magnificent Seven” earnings season.

The US has also reached deals with the Philippines and Indonesia and an agreement with the European Union is also expected.

“Worst case concerns about tariffs in the US are probably dissipating to some degree at the moment, but nonetheless, tariffs are going up and that is a hurdle for consumers,” Brian Martin, ANZ’s head of G3 economics, said in a podcast.

The EU and US are closing in a trade deal that would impose 15 per cent tariffs on European imports, while waiving duties on some items, according to officials from the European Commission. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said US and Chinese officials will meet in Stockholm next week.

Second-quarter earnings season is underway in the US, with 23 per cent of the companies in the S&P 500 having reported. Of those, 85 per cent have beaten Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG data.

Results from Magnificent Seven members, whose results have powered indexes to previous peaks, are in the spotlight for guidance on spending and returns surrounding artificial intelligence.

Alphabet strongly beat estimates and cited massive demand for its cloud computing services as it hiked its capital spending plans. But electric car maker Tesla posted its worst quarterly sales decline in more than a decade and profit that trailed analyst targets.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up 0.3 per cent. Japan’s Topix surged for a second day, rising 1.4 per cent to surpass its previous all-time high reached last year.

The Australian dollar, a common proxy for risk sentiment, fetched $0.66, just off $0.6604 hit earlier, which was the highest since November 2024. The US dollar dropped 0.1 per cent to 146.38 yen.

US crude climbed 0.4 per cent to $65.5 a barrel. Spot gold was traded at $3,390.84 per ounce, up 0.1 per cent.

In early trades, pan-region Euro Stoxx 50 futures shot up 1.3 per cent at 5,435, while German DAX futures were up 1.3 per cent.

US stock futures, the S&P 500 e-minis, were up 0.13 per cent and Nasdaq contracts climbed 0.4 per cent.

The fallout from Elon Musk’s plunge into politics is still hammering his Tesla business as both sales and profits dropped sharply again in the latest quarter.

The car company said revenue dropped 12 per cent and profits slumped 16 per cent in the three months through to June as buyers continued to stay away.

“The perception of Elon Musk, its chief executive, has rubbed the sheen right out of what once was a darling and soaring automotive brand,” wrote Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee in an email. Tesla is “a toxic brand that is inseparable from its leader.”

Quarterly profits at the electric vehicle, battery and robotics company fell to $1.17 billion, or 33 cents a share, from $1.4 billion, or 40 cents a share. That was the third quarter in a row that profit dropped. 

Revenue fell from $25.5 billion to $22.5 billion in the April through June period, slightly above Wall Street’s forecast. 

Tesla shares fell 3 per cent in after-hours trading. 

Musk spent the company’s earnings conference call talking less about car sales and more about robotaxis, automated driving software and robotics, which he says is the future of the company. But those businesses are yet to take off, and the gap between promise and profit was apparent in the second quarter.

As well as his role in the Trump administration, the Tesla chief alienated many potential buyers in Europe by embracing far-right candidates for office. Rival electric vehicle makers such as China’s BYD and German’s Volkswagen have pounced on the weakness, stealing market share. 

Tesla began a rollout of its paid pickup robotaxi service in Austin, Texas, and hopes to introduce the driverless cabs in several other cities soon. 

In the post-earnings call, Musk said the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the US by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

With autonomous taxis, though, the billionaire who upended the space race and EV manufacturing faces tough competition. The dominant provider now, Waymo, is already in several cities and recently logged its ten-millionth paid trip.

Meanwhile other threats loom. The new federal budget just passed by Congress eliminates a credit worth as much as $7,500 for buying an electric car. It also wipes out penalties for car makers on exceeding carbon emission standards. That threatens Tesla’s business of selling its “carbon credits” to traditional car companies that regularly fall short of emission standards.

“We’re in this weird transition period where we’ll lose a lot of incentives in the US,” Musk said, predicting several rough months ahead, possibly through June of next year. 

The company is  speeding up the introduction of a cheaper car to the market this year. 

In the robot business, Musk said he expects explosive growth as Tesla ramps up production of its humanoid Optimus helpers to 100,000 a month in five years.

“We’ll go from a world where robots are rare to where they’re so common that you don’t even look up,” he said.

Asked about whether he would want more than his current 13 per cent stake in Tesla to keep control, Musk said he did want more but not too much. 

“I think my control over Tesla should be enough to ensure that it goes in a good direction,” he said, “but not so much control that I can’t be thrown out if I go crazy.”

Australian cattle producers have been left blindsided by a decision to lift a ban on US beef, but the level of American product arriving in Australia is expected to be very low.

The federal government on Thursday revealed it would lift biosecurity restrictions on US beef as it seeks a way to dampen the blow of President Donald Trump’s volatile tariff regime.

Australia has been mulling over the move for months after Mr Trump requested a lift on the ban, and Agriculture Minister Julie Collins stressed the decision follows a decade-long science-based review.

Cattle Australia CEO Will Evans believed the move would not have been made unless the government had the utmost confidence in the science, but said some would still be unhappy with its decision.

“There’s going to be a lot of people today who feel blindsided by this, there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to feel really frustrated and threatened by this,” he told ABC radio.

“We need to talk to them.

“The US is an incredibly important trading partner – we need to maintain access and we need to maintain relationships with them.”

Some have raised worries US beef could impact Australia’s domestic market, industry representatives remain relatively unperturbed.

“It’s a bit like selling ice to Eskimos,” Australian Meat Industry Council CEO Tim Ryan told ABC.

The domestic beef industry is self-sufficient and any imports of US beef are “unlikely to have any effect on the market here”, Mr Evans said.

The US can’t even meet its own needs, he noted, and remains one of the main export markets for Australian beef.

Likewise, Australian beef is one of the country’s biggest exports to the US and was worth $14 billion in 2024.

But the US president has taken issue with the perceived one-sidedness of this relationship, saying in April, “they won’t take any of our beef”.

The US has been able to send beef to Australia since 2019, though any beef raised in Canada or Mexico before being slaughtered and processed in the US was previously barred due to biosecurity concerns.

One concern was that Mexico’s livestock tracking system could inadvertently lead producers to import beef from parts of the continent where there were disease outbreaks.

But the latest announcement will lift the ban on beef sourced from Canada or Mexico after the US introduced more robust movement controls in late 2024 and early 2025, allowing for improved identification and tracing throughout the supply chain.

“We have not compromised on biosecurity,” Ms Collins told reporters in Canberra.

“Australia stands for open and fair trade – our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this.

“(The department) is satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the US effectively manage biosecurity risks.”

The change is widely viewed as a bargaining chip Australia could use while attempting to push for tariff exemptions from the US.

Nationals Leader David Littleproud said he held concerns about its “swiftness”.

“It looks as though it’s been traded away to appease Donald Trump, and that’s what we don’t want,” he told ABC radio.

Opposition trade spokesman Kevin Hogan also said there are more questions to be answered and maintained the government needed to ensure biosecurity protocols had not been weakened.

Ms Collins insists the decision has been part of a years-long science-based process that precedes Mr Trump’s tariffs.

Many Australian goods sent to the US currently face the baseline 10 per cent tariff, while steel and aluminium products have been slapped with a 50 per cent tariff.

Mr Trump has also threatened a tariff on pharmaceutical imports to the US, which is one of Australia’s biggest exports to its ally.

Australia could become the subject of legal action after an international court said countries have an obligation to prevent climate change harm and redress damage caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

The non-binding advisory opinion was issued by a 15-judge panel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in The Netherlands overnight.

It opens the way for countries to potentially sue each other over climate change impacts.

Social justice group ActionAid Australia, which lobbies for women’s rights, said the advice was a wake-up call for the Labor federal government.

“This ruling is a powerful tool we can use to demand that those most responsible for this climate crisis be held accountable,” the group’s Vanuatu country manager Flora Vano said on Thursday.

Ms Fino, who travelled to the Hague last year to deliver testimony as part of the court proceedings, said women and girls on the frontlines of the climate crisis will be able to fight for justice and accountability.

ActionAid Australia executive director Michelle Higelin said the ruling was clear.

“Australia must do all it can to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees,” she said.

“This is not a choice, this is an obligation to take stronger and more urgent action.”

ActionAid wants the government to “urgently” transition away from fossil fuels and increase funding to low-income countries, including those in the Pacific, to support climate adaptation efforts.

Global science and policy institute, Climate Analytics, which has an Australia-Pacific region office, said the court has pointed to potentially serious legal consequences.

Action could be taken under customary international law if countries don’t put forward climate targets aligned to the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

“Importantly, these obligations also apply to countries whether or not they are Parties to the Paris Agreement,” it added. 

Australia’s current commitment to the Paris Agreement includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 43 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

The world court’s opinion comes after Vanuatu University law students argued that the people of Pacific island countries are unjustly bearing the brunt of climate change compared to high-emitting economies.

“The degradation of the climate system and of other parts of the environment impairs the enjoyment of a range of rights protected by human rights law,” presiding judge Yuji Iwasawa said, reading out the court’s opinion.

The court decision “confirms that states’ obligations to protect human rights require taking measures to protect the climate system … including mitigation and adaptation measures,” judge Hilary Charlesworth, an Australian member of the court, said in a separate opinion. 

The 133-page opinion was in response to two questions the United Nations General Assembly put to the UN court.

The first was: what are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions?

The second was: regarding the legal consequences for governments when their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?

A response is being sought from the federal government.

Vanuatu Minister for Climate Change Adaptation Ralph Regenvanu described the court’s opinion as a “very important course correction in this critically important time”.

“For the first time in history, the ICJ has spoken directly about the biggest threat facing humanity,” he said at The Hague.

Australia has opened the door to more US beef imports by lifting biosecurity restrictions, as the government seeks ways to dampen the blow from Donald Trump’s tariff regime.

The federal government revealed the changes on Thursday while stressing that the decision follows a decade-long science-based review.

“The Albanese Labor government will never compromise on biosecurity,” Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said.

“Australia stands for open and fair trade – our cattle industry has significantly benefited from this.

“(The department) is satisfied the strengthened control measures put in place by the US effectively manage biosecurity risks.”

Although the US has been able to send beef to Australia since 2019, any beef raised in Canada or Mexico before being slaughtered and processed in the US was previously barred due to biosecurity concerns.

One concern was that Mexico’s livestock tracking system could inadvertently lead producers to import beef from parts of the continent where there were disease outbreaks.

But the latest announcement will lift the ban on beef sourced from Canada or Mexico after the US introduced more robust movement controls in late 2024 and early 2025 allowing for improved identification and tracing throughout the supply chain.

The change could be used as a bargaining chip as Australia continues to push for tariff exemptions from the US after the US president earlier this year demanded Canberra lift the beef import restrictions.

Australia is the biggest exporter of beef to the US. 

According to Bendigo Bank’s recent mid-year agriculture outlook, Aussie beef will continue to be on the menu in the US, where herd numbers are in decline due to drought and increased costs of agricultural inputs.

Most Australian goods sent to the US currently face a 10 per cent tariff, while steel and aluminium products have been slapped with a 50 per cent tariff.

Mr Trump has also threatened a tariff on pharmaceutical imports to the US, which is one of Australia’s biggest exports to its ally.

Although Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is yet to secure a face-to-face meeting with Mr Trump – after their first scheduled talks were scuppered by the conflict in the Middle East – Australia has largely avoided the brunt of the tariffs as most of its exports are only exposed to the baseline levy.

But other aspects of the US-Australia relationship remain uncertain.

The nuclear submarine deal between Australia, the US and the UK – under the AUKUS security alliance – could be in peril after the Pentagon launched a review to examine whether the agreement aligns with Mr Trump’s “US first” agenda.

However, Mr Albanese has confirmed Australia made another scheduled payment as part of the deal to acquire US nuclear submarines, taking the total paid to $1.6 billion so far.

“It’s about increasing … their industrial capacity” to build the submarines, he told ABC television on Wednesday.

Under the $368 billion program, Australia will buy at least three Virginia-class submarines from the US sometime in the early 2030s.

A new class of nuclear submarines will be built in Adelaide to be delivered in the 2040s.

The European Union is heading towards a trade deal with the United States that will result in a broad 15 per cent tariff on EU goods imported into the US, avoiding a harsher 30 per cent levy slated to be implemented from August 1, two EU diplomats say.

The rate, which could also extend to cars, would mirror the framework agreement the United States struck with Japan.

Officials from the European Commission, which negotiates trade deals on behalf of the 27-member bloc, briefed EU envoys on the state of talks with their US counterparts. 

US President Donald Trump would ultimately make any final decision on a deal, however.

Under the outlines of the potential deal, the 15 per cent rate could apply to sectors including cars and pharmaceuticals and would not be added to long-standing US duties, which average just under five per cent.

There could also be concessions for sectors like aircraft, lumber as well as some medicines and agricultural products, which would not face tariffs, the diplomats said.

The US administration does not, however, appear willing to lower its current 50 per cent tariff on steel, they said.

The Commission said earlier on Wednesday that its primary focus was to achieve a negotiated outcome to avert the threatened 30 per cent tariffs.

At the same time it planned to submit counter-tariffs on 93 billion euros ($A166 billion) worth of US goods to EU members for approval. 

A vote is expected on Thursday although no measures would be imposed until August 7.

Germany supported the EU readying countermeasures, a government representative said.

If Trump’s 30 per cent tariffs are implemented, EU diplomats also said there was broad support among European governments to activate wide-ranging so-called “anti-coercion” measures, which would allow the bloc to target US services and other sectors.

The EU appears to be following in the footsteps of Japan, whose agreement with the United States is the most significant Trump has struck since launching his tariff offensive in April.

European shares climbed about one per cent, led by car stocks, following the US-Japan announcement.

One stand-out feature of that deal was that the same 15 per cent rate applies to cars, compared to the current US tariff of 27.5 per cent, something the EU may want for its own car exports.

The US imported vehicles and automotive parts valued at more than $US55 billion ($A84 billion) from Japan last year. 

EU exports were 47.3 billion euros.

Far fewer US cars were sold into the EU or Japanese markets.

EU officials say the US has shown little sign of budging on car tariffs but the Japan deal could hint at flexibility.

“Whatever the Japanese got will become the minimum for the EU negotiating objectives,” said Simon Evenett, professor of geopolitics and strategy at IMD Business School.