China and the United States hope to reach an agreement on lowering import taxes soon, a Chinese government spokesperson says, fuelling expectations that an announcement could come when the leaders of the two countries meet in two weeks.

Negotiators are striving to implement reciprocal tariff reductions on $US30 billion ($A42 billion) worth of goods “at an early date,” Commerce Ministry spokeswoman Huang Ling said at a weekly briefing.

The $US30 billion will be from each side, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to meet in Washington DC on September 24 for what will be their third face-to-face talks in the past year.

Both governments characterise the meetings as a way to stabilise relations in an era of competing interests between the world’s two largest economies.

“Leaders’ diplomacy plays an irreplaceable strategic guiding role in China-US relations,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Thursday.

Trump and Xi agreed at their previous meeting in May in Beijing to launch a US-China Board of Trade that would manage trade between the two countries, along with a parallel Board of Investment.

The agreements came after a truce was reached following an escalation in tensions in which Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese imports to extremely high levels and China responded in kind.

The talks on reciprocal tariff reductions are a central part of the negotiations on creating the Board of Trade.

The goal is to identify and reduce tariffs on equivalent amounts of “non-sensitive” goods on each side, the US said.

“Trade will be front and centre at the summit,” Barclays Bank said in a research note this week on the upcoming Trump-Xi meeting, noting that the truce the two countries reached on tariffs expires on November 10.

But it cautioned that the scope for a broad trade deal is limited, and that targeted tariff reductions are more likely.

But as the US and China have already reduced mutual trade reliance, the “overall trade significance will be more limited than before, given the smaller bilateral volume,” said Gary Ng, a senior economist at French bank Natixis.

Chinese exports to the US, for example, fell sharply last year, after the US rolled out elevated tariffs.

An agreement on reciprocal tariff reductions could likely benefit the US more, as $US30 billion is roughly 28 per cent of its exports to China, while it is only about 10 per cent the other way around, Ng said.

The European Central Bank has raised interest rates for the second time in 2026 in a widely flagged move, hoping to tame an inflation rise driven entirely ‌by higher energy costs from the Iran war.

Surging oil and natural gas prices pushed inflation well past 3 per cent ‌across the 21-country euro zone in August, far exceeding the ECB’s 2 per cent target, and a recent escalation of the conflict ‌points to further price pressures that could eventually seep into wage-setting.

“The outlook remains highly uncertain, with risks to the upside for inflation and to the downside for economic growth,” the ECB said in a statement after meeting in Berlin on Thursday, continuing its long tradition of holding one policy meeting a year in a different euro zone city.

The ECB ‌also lifted its ‌2026 economic ⁠growth projection to 0.9 per cent from 0.8 per cent seen in June and now sees inflation ​averaging 3.0 per cent this year and 2.5 per cent in 2027.

Thursday’s hike raises the ECB’s benchmark deposit rate to 2.5 per cent, the upper end of the “neutral” range considered by policymakers to neither restrict nor stimulate economic growth.

While financial investors are betting on further hikes later this year and in 2027, the ECB is likely to take its time with any follow-up move ⁠given a mixed outlook.

High energy costs suggest persistent inflation, ‌and ​all hopes are gone for a quick end to the US-Israeli war on Iran, which began in late February. ​High natural gas ‌prices are a growing worry, too, with gas storage levels below historic norms as the winter heating season ​approaches.

Economic growth is meanwhile holding up much better than feared, indicating a resilience that could also put upward pressure on prices.

High energy costs have yet to filter down into the price of other ​goods ​and services, however, confounding fears that second round ​effects would be quickly visible.

Underlying inflation, which filters out ‌volatile food and fuel prices, even slowed in August on moderating services inflation, while growth in wages, a crucial indicator to gauge price pressures, keeps slowing.

Bond yields have also increased sharply, mostly reflecting similar rises for US Treasuries, tightening financing conditions and doing some of the central bank’s work for it.

These factors suggest that even if ​price pressures persist, they are far less than in 2022, when inflation shot past 10 per cent as energy prices ​spiked following Russia’s invasion of ⁠Ukraine.

Attention now turns to ECB President Christine Lagarde’s press conference later on Thursday.

An Australian gold miner has sold off its operations in Papua New Guinea to a Chinese state-owned company.

Western Australia-based St Barbara is offloading its ownership of the New Simberi gold project to the Lingbao Gold Group for $410 million.

The announcement caused St Barbara’s stock to spike by more than 20 per cent to 88 cents before midday on Thursday, before falling back slightly to 86 cents.

The deal ensures St Barbara receives a 2.75 per cent royalty on all future gold and silver production dug out of the PNG mine, executive director Andrew Strelein said.

The miner estimates that the royalties will produce cash flows of $286 million for the duration of the project’s lifespan.

“St Barbara recognises that New Simberi is an outstanding development project and looks forward to participating in the future benefits via the royalties over New Simberi’s production,” Mr Strelein said.

Given that, its board is considering paying shareholders a further special dividend of about 13 cents per share, on top of a five cent dividend announced at its annual results in August, once the transaction is completed.

The Simberi operations are located on a small island in an archipelago roughly 300km off the PNG mainland.

St Barbara will also receive a 1.5 per cent royalty from any future mineral exploration the Chinese group conducts in the surrounding archipelago.

The deal will also include a $43 million repayment for capital expenditure St Barbara had invested in the project before the deal was done.

The total sale gets close to doubling the company’s cash position.

In August, the company reported a 2025/26 net profit just shy of $490 million, a figure that will rise to about $880 million.

St Barbara said it will use the funds to invest in further exploration of its other gold mine in Nova Scotia, Canada.

For Lingbao, it will add to China’s surge in buying gold.

The People’s Bank of China purchased about 20 tonnes of gold in August, its largest monthly purchase since 2023.

Plans to stop hate speech and dangerous content running rampant on social media will be opposed by the opposition, which says they amount to censorship. 

The coalition held a party room meeting on Thursday after it was divided on the government’s digital duty of care bill, and ultimately decided it would not support the legislation. 

Under the government’s proposed laws, social media companies would have to identify and mitigate harmful content for users under 18, including content encouraging disordered eating, pornography, harmful ideas about women, bullying and life-endangering stunts.

For adult users, illegal content would need to be monitored and quickly removed, along with posts that promoted terrorism, child exploitation and sexual violence.

The communications minister would be given a high level of discretion to determine if content should be removed. 

After the coalition meeting, Liberal Leader Angus Taylor said the legislation was not acceptable in its current form, meaning the government will likely need minor-party support for it to pass.

“The reality is, it’s providing a blank cheque for political censorship to the minister to the government.”

Mr Taylor stressed that the opposition was concerned about the harm social media caused to children, particularly in instances where people had died by suicide as a result of online content.

“We are always willing to work with the government to protect kids against serious harm,” he said. 

“What we don’t support is a political censorship bill, and sadly, that’s what we have in front of us.”

Opposition communication spokesperson Sarah Henderson said the draft legislation, originally intended to be announced later in September, had been “ham-fisted” and rushed, while giving sweeping powers to the minister.

Laws to strengthen the under-16s social media ban, which has been widely regarded as a failure since it was implemented in December, passed the Senate on Thursday morning.

It allows the eSafety commissioner, currently Julie Inman Grant, to compel access to information for investigating social media use by children. 

The maximum fine for company non-compliance will double to just over $100 million.

To date, no companies have been penalised as a result of non-compliance.

The Greens backed the bill, although they raised concerns about the maximum fine being too lax, but the coalition did not.

Mr Taylor said the bill gave “unfettered powers” to the commissioner and communications minister, which would lead to further censorship. 

Separately, the government has announced social media users would be able to decide if they wanted to keep algorithms or have a linear feed that prioritised the posts of their friends. 

It came after sustained campaigning from advocacy group Teach Us Consent, which argued that algorithms were radicalising young men particularly, with misogynistic “manosphere” content. 

Senator Henderson said she was “seeking transparency in relation to algorithmic parameters”, but she stopped short of agreeing to opt-outs. 

“We know that some of these algorithms are driving home and they are driving harm, and there does need to be a serious debate,” she said. 

The draft digital duty of care bill is open for public submissions until late September. 

The branding of Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie as a traitor by One nation has drawn parliamentary heavyweights and unlikely defenders into the ring. 

The former special forces soldier said Pauline Hanson and One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce were “lying cowards” and called the party leader “glass-jawed” after a cartoon video was posted to her X account which took aim at Mr Hastie.

Politicians of all stripes, including Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, have demanded the One National leader remove the video, which remains pinned to the top of her profile.

“Andrew Hastie has served this country with distinction as an officer in the SAS, she should take it down,” Mr Taylor told reporters on Thursday.

Mr Hastie had accused One Nation of politicising the court proceedings of accused war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith and “trashing” his own service record. 

The WA-based MP was subpoenaed to testify against Roberts-Smith’s in a defamation trial in 2022, which generated tension between himself and Senator Hanson. 

The spat comes as the coalition seeks to nullify a surge of support for Senator Hanson’s populist party, which has split much of the right-wing vote especially in regional and rural Australia.

The WA state seat of Secret Harbour, which sits squarely within Mr Hastie’s federal seat of Canning, was the latest to flip to One Nation at a by-election in August, as the anti-immigration party eyes off coalition-held electorates.

Senator Hanson on Wednesday denied calling the Liberal MP a traitor, saying it was only a satirical cartoon and he was “making a mountain out of a molehill”.

But the Liberal MP, seen by some political commentators as the party’s potential future leader, said the video had cast a “massive slur” on veterans across the country and he would continue to call out the One Nation leader.

“It shows her to be weak and glass-jawed. I gave the opportunity to either own her words publicly, or to take it down, she chose neither,” he told ABC Radio.

“Rather than stepping up as a leader, she claims she could be prime minister, she actually retreated back into cartoons and memes.

“So I think we’ve seen what Pauline Hanson ultimately is about. She’s not fit to govern this country.”

But a chorus of political adversaries joined Mr Hastie in condemnation the attacks from One Nation, including Tasmanian senator and fellow army veteran Jacqui Lambie.

“She’s disgusting … she’s the lowest bit of life you can possibly come from with that woman,” Senator Lambie said of the One Nation leader, also calling for the cartoon of Hastie to be taken down. 

“You watch this, the Australian people, here we go, here comes coward Hanson.”

While he said he disagreed with most of what Mr Hastie says, Greens senator David Shoebridge also came to the Liberal’s defence, describing the attack as disgraceful.

“You might agree or disagree, but (Hastie) goes into court and tells the truth as they understand it under oath, bloody hell, that’s actually what we want our politicians to do,” he told News24.

Mr Hastie said he was not seeking legal action against Senator Hanson, citing concerns about One Nation leader’s support from billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart.

Rinehart, who is Australia’s richest person, is a fierce supporter of Roberts-Smith and has named a planned housing complex for veterans in his honour.

Australian shares are plummeting towards their worst session since the early days of the US-led war on Iran as waves of attacks on oil tankers and military assets fuel a relentless rise in crude prices.

The S&P/ASX200 plunged 159.9 points by midday on Thursday, down 1.79 per cent, to 8,751.5, as the broader All Ordinaries dropped by 158 points, or 1.74 per cent, to 8,944.9.

Brent crude spiked to almost $US102 a barrel overnight after the US and Iran struck at least 15 oil tankers in the biggest series of attacks on shipping since the war began in late February.

Bond yields spiked after traders shrugged off an attempted US Treasury intervention.

The top-200 was on track for its worst session since crumbling 2.85 per cent on March 9.

Australian shares were facing a triple headwind, Moomoo chief market strategist Tapas Strickland said.

“Australian investors find themselves caught in an uncomfortable squeeze: surging crude oil, a jump in long-term sovereign bond yields and a firmer Australian dollar sitting at a four-month high against the greenback,” Mr Strickland said.

“While our resource and energy heavyweights will find some insulation given their commodities exposure, rising borrowing costs pose a distinct headwind for broader domestic corporate earnings and equity valuations.”

Local miners dragged the bourse lower, as more than 3.6 per cent drops in BHP and Rio Tinto weighed heavily despite copper trading at record highs and iron ore futures clinging to most of their recent gains.

Fuel cost fears weighed on gold stocks, which fell broadly despite the precious metal hovering near $US4,409 ($A6,111) an ounce.

Battery minerals and rare earths producers also tumbled, with PLS, Liontown and Lynas dropping about four per cent or more.

The heavyweight financials sector was just that, diving 1.8 per cent as CommBank led the big four banks lower to trade close to four-month lows of $167.91.

The sell-off didn’t spare the energy segment, which lost 0.5 per cent despite oil prices helping lift Santos and refinery operators Ampol and Viva Energy.

Consumer-facing sectors have tumbled in recent days, with staples and discretionaries down more than four per cent since Monday amid crumbling consumer and business confidence.

In company news, market darling-turned-whipping boy for short-sellers Droneshield has appointed former MYOB and Afterpay finance chief Rebecca Lowde as chief financial officer. 

The drone defence technology’s share price has tanked by almost two-thirds in 2026 after insider selling triggered a watchdog investigation and a slew of executive departures.

Woodside’s executive vice president and chief operating officer of international Daniel Kalms is stepping down after 25 years, with Gulf of America vice president Paa-Joe Akoto-Ampaw to step in until a replacement is found.

The Australian dollar is buying 72.18 US cents, down from 72.33 US cents on Wednesday at 5pm, trading roughly at four-month highs, with analysts divided on whether the Reserve Bank will deliver an interest rate hike in September or November.

Asian stocks slid on Thursday as the biggest ‌wave of attacks on shipping in the widening war in the Middle East kept oil prices above $US100 ($A138) a barrel, leaving investors nervous ahead of US inflation data that will influence monetary ‌policy.

Benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields held steady at 4.8406 per cent after scaling their highest since 2023 in the previous session as the Treasury Department announced a $US6 billion ($A8.3 billion) buyback of longer-dated bonds that disappointed some ‌investors who had wanted more.

Brent crude futures edged up to $US101.4 ($A140.3) per barrel in early trading, having broken through the psychologically crucial $US100 ($A138) mark on Wednesday for the first time since July as traders grappled with the prospect of inflationary pressure.

“I think that Brent pushing through the $US100 ($A138) level will be seen by many in the market as a significant event in the current scheme of things,” said Nick Twidale, chief market strategist at ATFX Global, who expects global yields to push higher as the market adjusts to higher inflation in the coming months.

“This move now ‌may convince some market ‌participants that may have been holding ⁠fire on certain positions, with hopes of a peace deal in the Middle East, to now hit the trigger ​as the realities of a longer conflict kick in.”

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.0 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s KOSPI dipped more than 1.0 per cent.

“Markets are facing a cocktail of headwinds in September which has historically not been the best seasonal month for stock markets,” said Vasu Menon, managing director of investment strategy at OCBC.

There has also been an escalation in fighting between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis in Yemen, a second theatre of war that threatens global energy supplies from the Middle East as the six-month ⁠conflict shows no signs of easing.

Higher oil prices and elevated bond yields have weighed on investor ‌sentiment, setting the ​stage for the series of central bank meetings in the coming days.

The euro was little changed at $US1.16322 ($A1.6095) ahead of the European Central Bank policy decision where it is expected to raise ​rates. Market focus ‌is likely to be on policymaker comments to gauge further moves. The Fed and the Bank of Japan are due next week.

US producer price and consumer price inflation reports ​are due later on Thursday and Friday, respectively, with analysts saying the data will play a key role in whether the Fed hikes rates at its September 15 to 16 meeting.

Fed funds futures traders are pricing in about 60 per cent odds of a rate hike next week.

“The bond market is under pressure as oil prices reignite inflation ​fears. ​But it’s not just oil we should be watching,” said Prashant Newnaha, ​senior rates strategist at TD Securities.

“Agricultural commodities are now breaking out and they are likely ‌to lift food’s contribution to CPI in coming months. At a minimum the stage is set for headline CPI remaining elevated until early 2027.”

The BOJ is widely expected to raise interest rates and analysts say the communication from officials will need to be hawkish to sustain the recent yen rally. The Japanese yen was at 153.63 per US dollar, having firmed 4.0 per cent in September.

The sharp rise has been driven by heightened expectations of faster BOJ rate hikes, traders exiting short positions in the Japanese currency ​and early signs of a potential rush of repatriation of Japanese capital.

“Failure to deliver a hike, alongside clearer signals of a faster pace of tightening next week, will likely ​trigger a sharp renewed weakening of the yen,” ⁠said Carol Kong, a currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, who expects a hike next week and another two in ​December and April.

The world’s biggest company, chipmaker NVIDIA, has announced it is partnering with eight leading Australian companies to build artificial intelligence factories to meet the growing demand for the technology.

NVIDIA said it was partnering with Firmus, Sharon AI, IREN, ResetData, Megaport, CDC, NEXTDC and AirTrunk on the project.

They’ll operate the AI factories, while NVIDIA will provide the hardware, computing, networking, software and ecosystem support.

The buildout could reach two gigawatts by 2027, NVIDIA said. That’s enough to power around 1.5 million homes.

One of the companies, Sharon AI, is deploying up to 68,000 NVIDIA GPUs, a massive number.

“AI factories turn energy into intelligence — the essential resource of the AI economy,” said Raj Mirpuri, vice president of global AI clouds and infrastructure ecosystem at NVIDIA.

The partnership will give Australian innovators greater access to accelerated computing and NVIDIA models to develop locally relevant AI applications, NVIDIA said.

Organisations such as Atlassian and Heidi are using NVIDIA’s tools to build and customise AI across language, reasoning and speech.

Heidi is a Melbourne-based AI company whose platform is used by doctors to generate clinical notes after its scribe feature listens in on patient consultations.

Combining NVIDIA’s technology with Heidi’s clinical training and fine-tuning has helped Heidi reason across patient histories, clinical context and guidelines at scale, said Yu Liu, cofounder and chief technology officer of Heidi.

“Australia’s established sustainable energy and digital infrastructure, deep technology talent and reputation as a trusted global economic partner provide a strong foundation for startups, universities, researchers, enterprises, developers and AI-native companies to train, deploy and scale AI,” NVIDIA said.

Business owners who sell illegal tobacco products will be easier to prosecute under a fresh push to smash the trade, which includes using cheaper prices as proof of illicit trading.

Laws being introduced to federal parliament on Thursday will overhaul customs rules to make it easier for illegal tobacco to be seized.

Under previous customs rules, it had to be proved illicit tobacco was being knowingly imported illegally.

The reforms will mean cigarettes being sold for less than the amount of excise and GST, presented in different packaging or being concealed would be enough for authorities to charge.

Assistant customs minister Julian Hill said the measures would bring customs rules up to date to properly tackle the scourge of illegal tobacco.

“It’ll give powerful new tools to border force, but every state and territory police force to go after the crooks,” he told ABC Radio on Thursday.

“This is a major global problem, and Australia’s not immune. It’s this massive surplus of cheap production of stuff for less than $1 a pack that’s been weaponised by serious and organised criminal syndicates flooding national borders.”

The measures follow the coalition pledging to cut the tobacco excise by 80 per cent in a bid to stop the rise of illegal cigarettes.

The response came after One Nation said it would cut the excise by 75 per cent.

About 80 per cent of all tobacco consumed in 2025 was illegal, up from 12 per cent in 2017, according to estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

At the same time, the tobacco excise has more than tripled.

Opponents have said the government increasing the excise by 34 per cent since it came to office in 2022 has contributed to a burgeoning black market and a wave of fire bombings on tobacco and vape sellers.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday left the door open to cutting the tobacco excise, but also said making legal tobacco and vapes more affordable was not going to help.

“State governments as well have a responsibility to crack down on shops that are selling illegal products,” he said.

Mr Hill said he expected to have support across the parliament for the customs changes.

“They’re exactly the powers which our law enforcement officials have been asking for,” he said.

“The way to really hurt these crooks is to go after their cash and their houses and their boats and their cars and their toys and take the profits of their crime off them.”

Apple has unveiled a foldable phone called Duo, introducing the biggest ‌change in years in the company’s flagship product.

The Duo is sized and shaped like a passport, with rounded edges.

It opens into a horizontal 19cm screen that also can be viewed vertically. 

There is a smaller single screen on the front, when ‌the phone is folded. 

When open, it is Apple’s thinnest phone, the company said.

The folding phone event, the first with new CEO John Ternus at the helm, is the most noticeable overhaul of Apple’s flagship product since it removed the physical home button from ‌the iPhone X in 2017. 

The iPhone brought in $US209.6 billion ($A290.0 billion), or just over half of Apple’s sales, in its most recent fiscal year.

Apple positioned the iPhone Duo as a business productivity device, showing how it would manage Zoom calls with multiple participants and a broader view of the Slack messaging app. 

The Duo’s larger screen will support multiple app windows at once, a move aimed at productivity that Apple has made with some of its iPads.

Ternus criticised existing foldables as awkward and poorly suited for common tasks such as scrolling and video viewing, saying the Duo was designed to deliver an iPad-like experience in a pocket-sized device through a custom hinge, dual displays with a consistent aspect ratio and a new titanium body.

“It’s entirely new and at the same time ‌remarkably familiar. A similar size to ‌your passport, it feels familiar to hold ⁠and comfortable to use with one hand,” Ternus said.

Apple said the iPhone Duo will feature the A20 chip to drive its displays and also a new C2 ​modem chip designed by Apple, part of its move away from Qualcomm’s wireless data chips.

“Apple has created a new premium growth opportunity, opened up another revenue stream and injected fresh momentum into the iPhone business,” PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore said. 

Apple’s US shares were down 1.8 per cent at the end of the presentation.

Former chief executive Tim Cook handed over the leadership baton to Ternus at the start of the presentation with a video about how to start the event. 

The video ended with a close-up of Cook, who said, “Not me. That’s your guy,” pointing back toward Ternus.

Ternus touted the iPhone platform as a personal AI hub that focused on privacy, saying that others wanted to collect and store personal data. 

“Honestly, trust only goes so far when your data is no longer ⁠yours to control,” he said.

“That’s why Apple Intelligence runs on-device whenever it can.”

Apple’s Lilian Rincon, who oversees AI products for the iPhone ‌maker and was recruited from Google ​earlier this year, described an updated Siri assistant that will work with 300,000 apps at release.

Executives also showed off the iPhone 18 Pro and the 18 Pro Max handsets that are the latest versions of Apple’s well-known line, which do not fold.

Apple also unveiled a feature aimed at addressing growing concerns over AI-generated and manipulated images.

It ​introduced a new standard it calls “Apple Reference Image” to prove the authenticity of the images taken with the new iPhone 18 Pro cameras and said it will also support the emerging SynthID standard for identifying images that have been created or edited with AI. 

The Apple Reference Image feature will not be available in European Union countries or China.

The iPhone 18 Pro will also include the new A20 Pro chip, which brings improvements to help advanced AI models ​to run directly ​on iPhones.

The company also said a new version of AirPods would come with noise cancellation, a ​first for its budget line of earbuds, and that a more expensive version would be available with extra features such as wireless ‌charging and on-stem volume control that would allow users to adjust the volume by swiping up or down on the stem.

Apple also introduced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4, positioning them as major health-focused upgrades. 

That includes a redesigned sensor system that collects heart rate more frequently than before and powers new features that gauge recovery and fitness.

The company said the watches use new Apple silicon and improved sensors to deliver what it called the most accurate heart-rate tracking in a wearable.

Ternus previously served as Apple’s hardware chief but has kept a low public profile aside from a handful of product introductions and sustainability initiatives. 

It will fall to Ternus to persuade Apple’s customers that they need a foldable device costing at least $A3499, a new high ​for a global brand that has defined mass luxury.

While Samsung Electronics and Huawei Technologies have sold folding phones since 2019, the devices have remained a niche among tech enthusiasts. 

But even with a steep price tag, analyst firms such as International ​Data Corporation expect Apple will sell every foldable iPhone it can produce ⁠and secure a 40 per cent share of the lucrative niche by the end of next year.