Canada ‌is seeking a “unique alliance” with the European Union but isn’t looking to become a member.

Prime Minister Mark Carney spoke to reporters on Sunday after the Wall Street ‌Journal reported he was exploring whether Canada could become an “associate member” of the bloc.

The EU, which has not been flexible about membership rules in the past, is open to ‌the idea of granting Canada a yet-to-be-created status of associate membership, the newspaper reported, citing unnamed officials both from the EU and Canada.

“We’re not looking to become a member of the European Union,” Carney said.

“What we are looking – and will begin discussions for – is a unique alliance between Canada and the European Union,” he told reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

“We share the same values, we have the same priorities and we have very complementary strengths.”

Carney’s office confirmed on Saturday he would travel to France and ‌Britain next week. ‌

He will address the ⁠European Parliament in Strasbourg and attend EU President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the European Union address.

The Globe ​and Mail newspaper separately reported it was the EU, not Carney, that floated the associate membership title, citing an anonymous source who said any discussion of a title for the relationship is premature.

Canada’s escalating trade war with the US has added urgency to its strategic pivot towards other trading partners.

Relations between Ottawa and Washington have deteriorated sharply since President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year due to disagreements over trade and other issues.

⁠The trade dispute has led to tariffs on tens of billions of dollars in cross-border trade.

Trump ‌on Sunday renewed ​his criticism, calling Canada “the worst country to deal with” but added he thought the nation was “dying to make a deal”.

“They’ve ripped off our country for years,” he ​told reporters aboard Air ‌Force One.

The US president reiterated his intention to impose new tariffs on cars, trucks and auto parts from Canada from January.

Canada and the EU are ​discussing ways of allowing Canada’s goods, services and workers involved in strategic supply chains such as energy, AI, defence and critical minerals to move freely, thus effectively shifting the EU border, the Wall Street Journal said.

Canada and the EU are also talking about laying underwater cables, jointly constructing data centres, cloud storage ​and ​new satellite networks as well as infrastructure to ship Canadian energy to ​the EU, the newspaper said.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is poised to formally ‌repeal carbon pollution standards for coal-and-gas-fired power plants, Bloomberg ‌News is reporting.

The latest ‌climate rollback is expected to come as soon as Monday on the sidelines of the G20 energy ministers’ meeting in Houston, Texas, according to Bloomberg citing people familiar with the matter.

Last year, US President Donald Trump’s ‌administration proposed repealing ‌rules passed ⁠under former President Joe Biden to curb ​emissions of carbon dioxide, mercury and other air pollutants from power plants.

This week, the EPA is finalising a piece of the initial proposal, and agency officials also plan to propose a ⁠separate rule repealing the federal finding ‌that ​greenhouse gases from power plants specifically pose a threat, Bloomberg ​said on Sunday.

Reuters could ‌not immediately verify the report. The EPA did not respond ​to a request for comment outside business hours.

The repeal is an important step in Trump’s broader strategy on ​environmental ​regulations he views ​as unnecessary barriers to industrial development and ‌expanded energy production.

Biden’s carbon emission rules for power plants would have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by one billion metric tonnes by 2047, a crucial part of his administration’s fight ​against climate change.

The electricity sector is responsible for nearly a ​quarter of US ⁠greenhouse gas pollution.

US President Donald Trump has announced at the close of a golf tournament in Ireland that he plans to remove a 15 per cent tariff on Irish whiskey.

Trump said during the trophy ceremony for the Irish Open that he had been asked about the issue by everyone, including some of the golfers.

He told the crowd he had discussed whiskey tariffs with Irish Taoiseach, or prime minister, Micheál Martin and with tournament winner Shane Lowry.

“Everybody’s been bugging me” to do it, Trump said. 

“And I said, ‘On behalf of the United States of America, I am going to take the tariffs off’,” from Irish whiskey.

Irish whiskey currently faces the 15 per cent tariff imposed by Trump on imports from the European Union. 

Trump announced in May that he was lifting certain tariffs on whiskey from the United Kingdom, which includes Scotch and spirits made in Northern Ireland.

Trump’s apparent surprise announcement at the conclusion of the tournament was met with loud whistling and cheers from the crowd of spectators.

In May, the Irish Whiskey Association called for the tariffs to be removed, arguing that such a step would help many US companies with Irish products in their portfolios and avoid uncertainty for consumers.

Details on how soon the tariff would be lifted were not immediately available.

Trump said on April 30 that he gave the UK a tariff break on whiskey after King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the White House. 

“The King and Queen got me to do something that nobody else was able to do, without hardly even asking!” Trump posted on social media.

The Scotch Whisky Association said on July 24 that the zero-tariff policy had come into effect.

Trump on Sunday evening departed Shannon Airport aboard Air Force One, bringing an end to his two-day visit to Ireland.

with AP and PA

Maritime trackers have received new reports of an attack on ‌a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, adding to concerns about Iran-related threats to energy supplies after Saudi Arabia shut down a vital oil pipeline.

The British navy-affiliated agency UKMTO said on Sunday it had a report of a projectile hitting ‌a vessel as it moved through the strait. 

Local authorities evacuated the crew after a fire broke out following the attack, the agency said on Sunday.

UKMTO’s report came the day after Saudi Arabia said it had temporarily closed ‌its east-west pipeline as a precaution after a drone attack Baghdad and Riyadh said had originated in Iraq, where Iranian-backed militias operate.

Ongoing attacks in the widening Middle East war could send energy prices even higher after a week in which Brent crude surged back above $US100 ($A139) a barrel.

The 1200km east-west pipeline across the Arabian Peninsula has served as the main route for global supplies of Middle East oil for the past six months while the Strait of Hormuz has been largely shut by war.

It has been moving four to five million barrels per day – four to five per cent of global supply – sparing Saudi Arabia the brunt of the disruption that ‌has crippled other Gulf oil ‌and gas exporters.

No one has claimed responsibility for the pipeline strikes.

Satellite images showed black smoke rising from an area of the pipeline south of Medina. 

The ​attack resulted in some injuries and damage that was being assessed, the Saudi Foreign Ministry said without detailing the impact on exports.

US President Donald Trump, visiting Ireland to attend a golf tournament at one of his resorts, said Iran was probably to blame.

On Saturday, the Saudi Civil Defence said in a statement a projectile fired by the Houthis had injured two people in Jazan region and damaged several buildings, including a mosque.

Iranian state media reported an Iranian commercial vessel was struck off its southern coast early on Sunday, killing one person and wounding three others, without giving further details.

Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said on Sunday Saudi Arabia carried out three air strikes on the al-Rubaie area in Taiz province in southwest Yemen. 

There was no official confirmation from Saudi Arabia. 

On Saturday, the Houthis said there had been 129 Saudi air strikes in the previous 48 hours.

Oil prices shot up in the past week and the retail price of diesel in the US surged as the US and Iran fired on tankers and the Houthis in Yemen rapidly advanced along the Red Sea, ⁠potentially giving Tehran leverage over both of the region’s main oil-shipping corridors.

Washington now faces a dilemma over whether to help the Saudis fight the Houthis, risking expansion of the war.

Saudi ​Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, phoned Trump on Thursday and asked for US military help fighting the Houthis, three sources told Reuters. 

They said the prince was told Washington would not intervene directly for ​now but would ‌help with intelligence.

Trump confirmed on Saturday he had spoken to the crown prince, and said the Houthis had also phoned his administration and asked Washington not to become directly involved in the conflict.

Four Yemeni government ​sources told Reuters the Houthis had seized the strategic island of Perim on Friday in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb strait – the “Gate of Tears” at the southern entrance to the Red Sea.

The Houthis have been attacking Saudi ships in the area since declaring a blockade in July and targeting its other oil facilities.

There have been no talks between the US and Iran to end the conflict since a June agreement ​that ​collapsed within weeks.

Russia has attacked a truck near Ukraine’s border with Poland, Polish and Ukrainian officials say – the latest strike to hit areas near NATO as Moscow and Kyiv intensify long-distance attacks.

Polish border guards told Reuters on Sunday the Dorohusk-Yahodyn crossing point briefly stopped working after the attack about 800 metres from Poland, but the crossing had since resumed operations.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had targeted infrastructure facilitating military cargoes from Europe ‌in western Ukraine.

Ukraine is dependent on trade and arms shipments from across the Polish, Romanian and Moldovan borders.

Russia has begun targeting Ukraine’s border crossings with its Western allies in recent weeks, part of a growing campaign by both sides to erode the other’s economic infrastructure more than four years into Russia’s invasion.

In India, where Russian President Vladimir Putin had been attending the BRICS ‌summit, Kremlin spokesman ‌Dmitry Peskov said both Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping had offered help to broker ​a peace settlement, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

At a summit in Kyrgyzstan in August, Modi told Putin the war must end, one of several calls for peace from leaders of nations that have traditionally strong relations with Russia.

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev publicly told Putin in August he should halt the conflict along the front line, which has remained largely static this year.

Russia has ruled that out, saying Ukraine ⁠should pull back to leave the industrialised eastern Donbas region in Moscow’s hands, which Kyiv has vowed it will never do.

Both Brazil and China, themselves founding BRICS members, have called for a resumption of peace talks.

TASS cited ​Peskov as saying Putin had informed Modi of the situation “on the ground” in Ukraine, and that Russia had not ruled out resuming three-way talks ​between Russia, Ukraine and the US in October.

Overnight, hostilities showed no signs of letting up.

In the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s southeast Zaporizhzhia region, the head of Russia’s state nuclear energy company Rosatom accused ​Ukraine ​of striking fuel trucks close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear ​power station, Europe’s largest.

Russia has controlled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant since March 2022, and it remains close to the front line.

A Ukrainian military spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In Russia itself, the mayor of the city of Nizhnekamsk, in the Volga River region of Tatarstan, said “civilian and industrial” targets in the city had been struck by Ukrainian drones, causing at least two deaths and several more injuries.

Mayor Radmir Belyaev did not clarify which targets ​had been struck, but the city hosts a major oil refinery which has been attacked in the past.

Ukrainian authorities did not immediately ​comment on the strike on Nizhekamsk, ⁠but did say they had struck another refinery in the southern Krasnodar region.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has unveiled initiatives from AI to trade to deepen co-operation among “Greater BRICS” emerging economies as Beijing seeks to weld the bloc into a practical platform for Global South development.

Co-operation in areas from politics and security to ‌economics and finance is the grouping’s main focus, with 2026 chair India and 2027 chair China seeking wider partnerships to boost its global clout.

The success of the “Greater BRICS Initiative” depends on laying a solid foundation for pragmatic co-operation, Xi told the leaders’ annual summit in New Delhi on Sunday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

“Greater BRICS” nations should further co-operate, maintain the stability of industrial and supply chains, and cultivate an integrated market, Xi told the summit’s ‌closing session.

China will ‌take the lead in ⁠establishing a BRICS AI Open Source Zone to promote co-operation on large language models, AI training and ​an open AI ecosystem, Xi said.

He also proposed a BRICS Special Economic Zone partnership and said China would host a BRICS Service Trade Forum in 2027 to boost trade and investment ties.

BRICS has expanded to include Iran, Indonesia, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates beyond its original membership of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa two decades ago, which aimed to transform a world order dominated by the US.

In addition, ⁠10 partner countries span emerging economies across Asia, Africa, Latin America and the ‌Middle East, broadening BRICS’ ​reach across the Global South.

China and Russia sometimes refer to this larger bloc as “Greater BRICS”.

The ​benefits of solutions ‌developed within BRICS should not stay limited to BRICS alone, but should be adaptable and accessible to meet the needs of the Global ​South, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said earlier.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called BRICS a powerful driving force towards creating a new, fairer and multipolar world order, urging its members to find ways to combine the competitive advantages of their individual economies.

The summit comes ​amid ​renewed fighting in the Gulf region, with tit-for-tat attacks by ​the US and Iran, and as Iran-backed Houthis widen the conflict by ‌launching attacks on Saudi Arabia.

But the weekend summit scored an important diplomatic goal on Saturday, when it reached consensus on a joint declaration backed by Iran and the UAE.

In general terms, the declaration expressed deep concern over the continued escalation of tensions in the Middle East and urged maximum restraint.

Separately, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian also met the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi on the sidelines, in the highest-level meeting of officials from the two countries since the start of the conflict.

They discussed de-escalation and stability and efforts to advance regional peace and development.

A case of bird flu has been detected in an Australian sea lion for the first time, raising concerns for the species’ already dwindling population.

A sea lion at South Australia’s Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island tested positive for the highly transmissible disease, authorities confirmed on Sunday.

Endangered sea lions are the rarest species of seal in Australia, with more than 80 per cent of the estimated total population of 10,000-12,000 found in SA.

The development has sparked fears of a possible extinction event after seal colonies worldwide were left devastated by the virus.

The seal that tested positive had also been attacked by a shark and may have been more susceptible to the disease as it was recovering, SA Environment Minister Emily Bourke told reporters.

“We found that it was actually not the shark attack that killed the sea lion; it was the bird flu case,” Ms Bourke said.

“When we look around the world in regards to the impact on sea lions and seals, there’s been a devastating impact.

“We know that this is going to be not the first and only case in our sea lions.”

In some cases, populations of seals impacted by the disease globally had experienced reductions in pup numbers of up to 95 per cent.

A long-nosed fur seal that died of the virus in August at Pages Conservation Park, nearby Kangaroo Island, was Australia’s first recorded case of the disease in a mammal.

Authorities are scrambling to protect the seals, with hundreds of feral cats around Seal Bay trapped to prevent them contributing to the spread of the virus.

With no approved bird flu vaccines currently available for mammals, more than 400 seal pups were instead vaccinated against hook worm, to give them the best chance possible to fight off infections.

“We just want to take our make our seals as resilient as possible,” Ms Bourke said.

Even before the arrival of bird flu, the sea lion population on Kangaroo Island was declining by around two per cent every year due to other factors.

Ms Bourke said her state would be open to conducting tests of experimental vaccines which require the approval of the federal government.

A vaccine trial on monk seals in Hawaii was recorded as being successful.

“We are obviously willing and able and ready to participate in a vaccine program if it can be approved at a national level,” Ms Bourke said.

“The cost isn’t a factor here, it is the ability to get it into the country and go through that rigorous process.”

There have been 290 confirmed cases of bird flu in SA since the start of the year, accounting for more than half of the 521 cases recorded nationwide.

The prime minister has mounted an emotional defence of his late mother after “nasty” comments from Pauline Hanson resurfaced, in which the One Nation leader criticised her long social housing tenure.

Senator Hanson has been slammed as unfit to govern for the remarks and her party’s painting of ex-SAS soldier-turned-Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie as a “traitor”.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday said he was “stunned” to learn the One Nation leader criticised his mother for living in social housing for several decades.

Mr Albanese has publicly referred to his experience of growing up in public housing in inner-city Sydney with a single mother as being a motivation for his political career and vision as Labor leader.

“I’ll make this point: if Pauline Hanson wants to criticise me, then that’s fine,” he told reporters in Sydney.

“But my mother was way out of Pauline Hanson’s league, way out of it.

“I said during the last campaign, kindness isn’t weakness. Tell you what’s weakness: nastiness and spitefulness.”

Senator Hanson made the remarks during an interview with Karl Stefanovic in February.

Trade Minister Don Farrell labelled the comments “appalling”.

“I think Ms Hanson should apologise,” the Labor frontbencher said.

“She wants dignity and respect from her fellow parliamentarians. Attacking the prime minister’s mother like this is not a way to get respect and dignity from your colleagues.”

She has also faced fierce criticism from Mr Hastie over a One Nation cartoon that branded him a traitor and on Sunday he joined his political opponents in denouncing her for the latest remarks.

The West Australian MP said Senator Hanson should “leave mums out of it”, adding the comments about Mr Albanese’s late mother were another sign she was unfit to lead.

He accused her of failing to take responsibility for her actions and hiding behind “childish” material in reference to the satirical cartoon.

“She’s revealed in the last week that she doesn’t have what it takes to be prime minister of this country,” Mr Hastie told News24.

“When I put the pressure on her over the cartoon … she showed herself to be rattled.

“If she were to be prime minister, is she going to run cartoons about all her political opponents? How is she going to devote her time?

“Is she serious? Does she have a worldview that we can actually understand? These are all legitimate questions for One Nation.”

Senator Hanson has brushed off complaints about the “traitor” comments in the cartoon, saying it shouldn’t be taken too seriously despite attracting criticism from across the political spectrum.

Her office was contacted for comment about the latest criticism.

Mr Hastie has been attacked by One Nation for testifying during the defamation trial of accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith, both of whom served in the elite Special Air Service Regiment in Afghanistan.

The Victoria Cross recipient has been charged over five alleged murders involving unarmed detainees during his deployment in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.

Roberts-Smith denies the allegations.

Displaying a photo of an Australian prisoner of war being beheaded by Japanese forces during the Second World War, Mr Hastie said Senator Hanson must clarify whether she believed it was acceptable to execute prisoners.

“She’s got to come out and make her position very clear,” he said.

“What’s her standard for battlefield conduct?”

OpenAI won’t go public in 2026, Chief Executive Sam Altman says, citing safety concerns over artificial intelligence that render “unacceptable” even a 10 per cent risk that AI could cause human extinction by decade’s end.

The comments come as more ‌US lawmakers urge new rules to govern AI systems after dire warnings from two researchers from OpenAI rival Anthropic that rapidly progressing AI could lead to the extinction of the human race in the not-too-distant future.

“I actually think that, given everything happening with safety, right now would be an ill-advised moment to go public, and we don’t feel pressure on that,” Altman told business magazine Fortune on Saturday.

Asked if there was a 10 per cent chance of AI-driven extinction, Altman said he didn’t ‌know how such an ‌estimate could be made, but ⁠warned the risk was serious enough that AI companies and governments should act as though it ​could not be tolerated.

“Whether it’s 10 or eight or six, the point is, we all have a tremendous amount of responsibility, and cannot let egos or incentives for profit or anything else get in the way,” Altman added.

“We need to act such that we are not taking any of those numbers of risk, and I believe we can.”

Politicians have responded with alarm and called for more action after cases of AI agents going ⁠rogue to hack external systems and AI safety researchers quitting their companies out of ‌concern at ​the technology risks.

In June, the New York Times said San Francisco-based OpenAI was considering whether to hold off until 2027 on a potentially trillion-dollar IPO.

At ​the time, shares ‌in Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO were tumbling after a surge that sent that company’s valuation to $US1.8 trillion ($A2.5 trillion).

Asked by Fortune if an IPO date of 2026 ​was off the table in favour of 2027, Altman said, “I would say not 2026”.

“We got a lot of stuff to do, like meeting this moment of what is going to be required for safety and alignment, and how the industry and governments can work together.”

Altman also ​suggested ​that OpenAI and other leading AI firms may be close to ​unveiling a pact to slow AI development and work together to tackle safety ‌risks.

On Saturday, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei urged AI companies to take a more deliberate approach to development.

“We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models,” Amodei wrote in an essay on X.

Altman later posted that he agreed with the sentiment.

“I agree with Dario that we need to pace the frontier,” Altman wrote. 

“This has been a primary topic of discussions we’ve had at OpenAI in recent weeks.”

Safety ​concerns have not slowed Anthropic’s own IPO plans. It is expected to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete ​the listing days before the US midterm ⁠elections in November, people familiar with the matter told Reuters this month.

Comments by senior Reserve Bank of Australia officials will be closely monitored as anticipation builds towards another interest rate hike later this month.

The central bank’s chief economist, Sarah Hunter, will participate in a fireside chat at a Regional Australia Institute summit in Canberra on Monday.

Then, RBA governor Michele Bullock will appear before a parliamentary committee on Friday.

Both are expected to echo recent comments from bank officials reiterating that inflation is too high and leaving the door open to further interest rate hikes, following the three the bank has handed down so far in 2026.

Dr Hunter and RBA deputy governor Andrew Hauser sent bonds markets into a spin in separate hawkish speaking appearances last week.

Markets are now pricing in about a four in five chance the RBA will lift the cash rate by 25 basis points on September 29.

Westpac’s economics team was the last of the big four banks to drop their call for no more rate hikes following Mr Hauser’s appearance on ABC’s 730 program.

But Westpac chief economist Luci Ellis still thinks the RBA is more likely to hike in November than September.

Even though July monthly inflation data surprised strongly to the upside, the board tends to prefer to move after less volatile quarterly inflation data.

“Overreacting to a noisy monthly print is something they have previously said they would not do,” Dr Ellis said.

“That said, if the internal members felt the situation was more urgent and wanted to get the hike done in September, we believe they could muster a majority of Monetary Policy Board votes in favour.”

Strong consumer price data has meanwhile reinforced expectations among Wall Street investors that the US Federal Reserve will also raise rates to fight inflation.

The S&P 500 climbed 0.86 per cent to end Friday’s session at 7,656.98 points.

The Nasdaq gained 0.96 per cent to 26,333.04 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.98 per cent to 52,573.29 points.

Australian share futures were up 18 points, or 0.20 per cent, to 16,526.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 78.2 points on Friday, down 0.89 per cent, to 8,741.2, as the broader All Ordinaries slumped 88.1 points, or 0.98 per cent, to 8,920.2.