The US government has acknowledged that drafting dozens of parallel trade agreements with countries around the world within three months is an ambitious undertaking.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt admitted that it was a massive task but said the negotiations are a team effort and she praised US President Donald Trump’s trade advisors.

According to the White House, more than 75 countries have contacted the US government so far to work towards a negotiated solution in the international trade conflict.

More than 15 countries have already submitted concrete proposals.

China increased its tariffs on US imports to 125 per cent on Friday, hitting back against Trump’s decision to raise duties on Chinese goods.

Faced with significant turbulence in the stock markets, Trump recently backtracked in the international trade conflict and suspended certain tariffs that had just come into effect for 90 days – with the exception of China.

During this tariff pause, negotiations with the affected countries are expected to take place.

Trump stated that his goal is to use tariffs to pressure other countries into lowering trade barriers for imports from the United States.

The tit-for-tat tariff increases by the US and China stand to make goods trade between the world’s two largest economies impossible, analysts say.

That commerce was worth more than $US650 billion ($A1 trillion) in 2024.

“The president made it very clear: When the United States is punched, he will punch back harder,” Leavitt told reporters on Friday.

While US stocks ended higher, the US dollar slid and a sell-off intensified in US government bonds – the world’s biggest bond market.

Gold, a safe haven for investors in times of crisis, scaled a record high.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is closely monitoring the bond market, Leavitt said.

As China retaliated with new tariffs on Friday, the country’s finance ministry called Trump’s tariffs “completely unilateral bullying and coercion”.

China indicated this would be the last time it matched US tariff rises but left the door open for other types of retaliation.

“If the US truly wants to have talks, it should stop its capricious and destructive behaviour,” Liu Pengyu, spokesman for the Chinese embassy in the US, wrote on social media.

“China will never bow to maximum pressure of the US.”

UBS analysts in a note called China’s declaration “an acknowledgement that trade between the two countries has essentially been completely severed”.

with DPA

The Nationals’ campaign, colloquially known as the wombat trail, has been charging ahead at full steam, with the leader canvassing four states and thousands of kilometres in a week.

But while a wisdom is the collective for wombats, this doesn’t always translate to the travelling campaign.

Their trail is far from as glamorous or regimented as the Liberal or Labor ones and the language is less polished.

As the prime minister and opposition leader posed with babies, David Littleproud cleaned baby spew off the floor of an outback pub in Winton.

As the two men vying for the top job roll into a city with a massive press pack before largely disappearing after holding a press conference, the Nationals leader usually ends the day at the local pub with his small team.

A small wooden wombat has also been travelling with the pack and has done so at every election since Mark Vaile took over as leader in 2005.

Mr Littleproud acknowledges the coalition had a rocky start to the first week of campaigning after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese fired the starting gun the morning after a major opposition policy announcement.

Peter Dutton used his budget reply speech to unveil his signature energy policy of pumping more gas into the grid and setting up an east coast reserve to bring down power prices.

“That oxygen was sucked away because (Mr Albanese) drove down the road to see the governor-general,” Mr Littleproud said.

“So obviously it was about trying to get that message and reset.”

His circuit from regional Victoria, across NSW, up to Darwin and back down through Queensland over the second week gives an insight into their strategy and seats in play in the run up to the May 3 election.

Calare in central west NSW, which covers areas like Orange and Bathurst, is a key seat for the Nationals as it faces a challenge from former National turned independent Andrew Gee.

It’s little wonder Mr Littleproud chose Mount Panorama in Bathurst to launch his key regional funding policy.

The coalition is also targeting both Northern Territory seats – Solomon, which takes in most of Darwin and Lingiari.

The outside money is on Bendigo, held by Labor on a more than 11 per cent margin, where the Nationals leader is making a habit of visiting.

All were toured by Mr Littleproud in the past week, across which he made a number of local funding and infrastructure announcements before unveiling his signature policy, a $20 billion regional investment future fund.

The perpetual fund that would spend $1 billion a year “should be a legacy for regional Australia”, he said.

Victory was even sweeter for the junior coalition partner as news broke of the fund and some Liberal MPs began blinking twice at the size of the regional commitment.

Mr Littleproud’s pitch can be whittled down to two major themes – cost of living and regional infrastructure.

The coalition’s pledge to halve the fuel excise, which would bring petrol prices down 25 cents a litre for 12 months, is popular in the regions where people routinely drive hundreds of kilometres.

The second theme largely includes healthcare, childcare and aged care, where what can be viewed in Canberra as small contributions are life-changing amounts of money for locals.

An $8 million commitment for more aged care services in Winton was met with tears as residents were promised a coalition government would back their most cherished project.

Entire generations of families that have had to up and leave when elderly parents and grandparents couldn’t find local beds would now be able to stay.

That’s what Mr Littleproud wants his legacy for regional Australia to be.

An embryo mix-up that led to a women unknowingly giving birth to a stranger’s baby will traumatise thousands of other Australians undergoing IVF treatment. 

Leading fertility clinic Monash IVF has revealed a woman at a Brisbane clinic had another patient’s embryo incorrectly transferred to her, due to “human error”.

The mistake was picked up in February after the birth parents asked for their remaining embryos to be transferred elsewhere and an additional embryo was found in storage.

Monash IVF, which is based in Melbourne and has clinics around Australia, has apologised and expressed confidence it was an isolated incident.

The mix up will be deeply upsetting for other families going through IVF, Samantha Payne from the Pink Elephants Support Network said.

“There will be people who will be deeply triggered by this and they’ll want some reassurance around their own experiences of fertility, around the children that they may or may not have had through IVF,” Ms Payne told AAP.

About one in 18 babies are born through IVF in Australia, where there are no other known instances of a similar embryo mix-up happening.

However cases have been documented overseas.

In February, United States woman Krystena Murray launched action against her fertility clinic in Georgia after giving birth to a baby boy who was not genetically hers.

She reportedly wanted to keep the baby but gave him up after his biological parents sued for custody.

Ms Payne’s network said IVF patients must be reassured that steps are taken to prevent such an incident ever happening again.

Legal experts say determining the next step is a family law matter rather than a medical issue, however all involved would likely be entitled to compensation. 

Empirical bioethicist Hilary Bowman-Smart said it is important to consider the child’s best interests, including their right to know about what happened, in the future.

“From an ethics perspective, I don’t think we can say it’s a stranger’s baby,” Dr Bowman-Smart said.

The birthing mother has been pregnant for nine months, she’s given birth and for several months, she and her partner have been raising that baby, the bioethicist added. 

“In a meaningful way, that is their baby. The problem is that, in a meaningful way, it’s also these other people’s baby,” she said.

“It’s not as simple as whose genes does the baby have?”, the University of South Australia researcher said.

Monash IVF chief executive Michael Knaap said the company would continue to support the patients and has committed to implementing any recommendations from an independent investigation.

In 2024, it reached a $56 million settlement with more than 700 former patients after embryos were destroyed due to allegedly faulty genetic screening.

The class action claimed about 35 per cent of embryos found to be abnormal were normal, and while the company confirmed a settlement was reached it noted there was no admission of liability.

What’s happened to all the fish? We’ve eaten them all.

Overfishing has long-wreaked havoc on ecosystems and coastal communities reliant on marine life, and government handouts are largely to blame, according to Dirk Zeller, leader of the University of Western Australia-based research group the Sea Around Us – the Indian Ocean.

Without government-subsidised fishing boat fuel and equipment, Professor Zeller said the most exploitative practices, such as trawling or distant ocean fishing, would struggle to stack up financially.

Lax labour laws could also act as subsidies, he told the Indian Ocean Conference in Perth, allowing companies to operate without looking after their workers.

Prof Zeller said harmful subsidies should be redirected to beneficial government funding to manage conservation and no-catch zones that helped fish stocks replenish. 

“That might really help you, as small-scale fishers, to maintain your life, maintain your catches,” he said.

Agitation by the scientific community has finally resulted in an agreement through the World Trade Organisation to ban some – but not all – of the taxpayer-funded subsidies fuelling overfishing.

While the bans were yet to be accepted, Prof Zeller said the necessary support of two-thirds of member countries was close.

Indian Ocean fishers are supported by roughly $US3.2 billion ($A5.1 billion) in subsidies annually, 90 per cent of them from Indian Ocean Rim countries.

The two-day Perth conference, hosted by the French Embassy in Australia and the Minderoo Foundation, aims to gather perspectives ahead of the Third United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice in June.

A sustainable global fishing industry is one of the goals.

Sea Country Solutions senior scientist Sahira Bell stressed sustainable fishing management was only possible if First Nations communities were brought along for the ride.

In Australia’s Indian Ocean territories, Cocos (Keeling) and Christmas Islands, top-down regulation of bag limits and other rules by the Australian government were not received well by First Nations island communities.

Residents would opt to stay off the water entirely “in an almost act of defiance” during the periodic appearances of “Fisheries Thor”, a tall man from the Australian mainland who would come to inspect fishing practices on the islands.

“These kinds of conflicts and tension just built over time,” Dr Bell said.

Recognising the system was not working, the Australian government engaged Sea Country Solutions to redesign fishing rules to better suit communities that relied on the oceans to feed their families.

“This is their food security. It’s their livelihoods. It’s their identity and very much a part of their culture,” Dr Bell said.

She said locals supported rules to conserve fishing for the future but wanted power over decisions made about their oceans.

The final result was a new governance model that gave communities a formal role in the fisheries’ decision-making.

Indian Ocean Commission head of environment and climate Gina Bonne said consumers should be aware of the type of fish they eat and the environmental and social impact.

“In countries where tourism is the main stake of the economy, the demand for the quality for certain type of fish is very high,” she said.

“And this is where you see that the fishermen, when they go out there, there is a pressure on those type of fish species.”

Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton will formally launch their election campaigns as the major parties try to cement their pitches to voters before a slew of public holidays. 

Labor’s formal launch will be in Perth on Sunday, while the coalition is expected to hold its event in Sydney on the same day.

Campaign launches tend to be held much later during the five-week race but the Easter long weekend is approaching, and the Anzac Day weekend follows at the same time as school holidays.

Up to half of voters cast their ballots early, and pre-poll centres for this election will open more than a week after the formal launches.

The steep increase in early voting revealed how little campaigns mattered overall, ANU political scientist Jill Sheppard said.

“The fact that they are going a little bit earlier this year suggests that they have something up their sleeve,” she said.

“The Liberal Party has been pretty wide on policy detail so far, so I suspect that there will be an old-style, big splash announcement … and possibly the same for Labor as well.”

The vast majority of voters at this point had either made their minds up or were getting ready to vote early, Dr Sheppard said.

“What we’ll see in the campaign launches is policy announcements that reveal the exact groups of voters the parties are targeting,” she said.

“Unless one leader was to make a disastrous campaign misstep, it’s not really going to shift folks at this time. 

“It’s all about maintaining the appearance of competence.”

Western Australia was key in delivering Mr Albanese his 2022 election victory, with the location of Labor’s launch showcasing its importance to the party’s re-election hopes.

Mr Albanese clocked up his 30th visit to the mining state as prime minister in the first week of the campaign.

Mr Dutton has targeted voters in western Sydney, spruiking the coalition’s cost-of-living measures to those doing it tough in mortgage-belt seats.

The UK parliament will be recalled to discuss British Steel, the loss-making Chinese company which could be nationalised, Sky News reports citing sources.

British Steel, owned by China’s Jingye Group since 2020, had warned in March it could shut its two blast furnaces as soon as June after it failed to agree with the government a funding deal to switch to a greener type of steel production.

British Steel has said it is losing 700,000 pounds ($A1.5 million) a day, hit by years of high energy prices and compounded by US tariffs of 25 per cent on all imports of steel which took effect in March.

UK finance minister Rachel Reeves, asked about nationalisation, told reporters earlier on Friday that all options remained on the table for British Steel, whose Scunthorpe, eastern England-based plant, employs about 3000.

“We recognise the importance both to Scunthorpe for the jobs and community there but also for our national economy, to maintain the capacity to make steel in Britain,” Reeves said.

The House of Commons declined to comment when asked by Reuters about the recall of parliament.

The lower chamber of parliament, the House of Commons, had been scheduled to be in recess for an Easter holiday until April 22.

While it can be recalled to sit during recess, it only tends to happen rarely and in extraordinary circumstances, for instance, in August 2021 to discuss the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.

Global stocks see-sawed in volatile trade on Friday while the US dollar sank after a brutal week marked by an all-out trade war and a dramatic loss of confidence in US assets as anchors of market stability.

The US dollar slid to its lowest in 10 years against the Swiss franc and a six-month low against the yen as investors sought other safe haven assets. The euro surged 1.7 per cent to $US1.13855, a level last seen in February 2022 and gold, seen as a safe asset during times of crisis, hit another record high.

Investors are grappling with worries over the escalating Sino-US trade war after US President Donald Trump ratcheted up tariffs on Chinese imports, raising them effectively to 145 per cent.

On Friday, China hit back, hiking its tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent, from 84 per cent, helping unleash another wave of money into other markets, such as Europe, where the euro roared to more multi-year highs against the dollar and the Chinese yuan.

An overnight selloff in US Treasuries abated but left the 10-year note yield at 4.4 per cent, still up about 45 basis points in the week, its biggest increase since 2001, LSEG data showed. Bond yields go up when prices go down.

“US and China tariffs are now so high on one another, it’s easy to argue trade in most goods will come to a complete stall apart from essential items and those with high margins. US-China commercial flows will be in freefall casting doubt on the long-term and short-term role of the dollar,” Mizuho head of fixed income, currencies and commodities strategy Jordan Rochester said.

In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei tumbled 4.3 per cent, while stocks in South Korea fell nearly one per cent.

Hong Kong and China stocks reversed earlier declines on Friday and narrowed the week’s losses, as a chip share rally and potential state buying shielded against more losses.

The Hang Seng Index jumped 1.1 per cent at the close, reversing an earlier fall of as much as 1.2 per cent in morning trades. The tech subindex climbed 1.8 per cent.

European stocks pared earlier losses to trade up around 0.1 per cent on the day, having fallen by as much as one per cent previously. The STOXX 600 is still down around 1.7 per cent this week, one of its most volatile weeks on record.

James Athey, fixed income manager at Marlborough, said the outlook remains clouded in more uncertainty than it did a month ago: “There are still so many unanswered and unanswerable questions.”

US futures for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq were up almost one per cent, but trading was highly erratic, with both having traded down as much as two per cent earlier before rallying as much as 1.6 per cent.

The anxiety about tariffs has sparked a renewed rush into safe havens, after a brief but massive relief rally following Trump’s move on Wednesday to temporarily postpone tariffs on many countries.

“The short-term outlook for global risk assets remains uncertain given growth and inflation concerns, fluid sentiments and fast-changing developments on the trade and tariff fronts,” said Vasu Menon, managing director of investment strategy at OCBC Bank in Singapore.

A violent US Treasury selloff this week, evoking the COVID-era “dash for cash”, has reignited fears of fragility in the world’s biggest bond market.

Thirty-year bond yields rose to 4.90 per cent, on course for their biggest weekly jump since at least 1982, LSEG data showed.

“What we are seeing in US bond markets is not currently about inflation concerns,” said Michael Krautzberger, Global CIO Fixed Income at Allianz Global Investors.

Krautzberger said the price action in Treasuries could be reflecting investor fears that a sharp growth slowdown, or recession, “makes an already unsustainable US fiscal outlook even worse.”

“On the other hand, we could just be witnessing a rebalancing among institutional investors or a deleveraging from levered funds.”

In commodities, gold hit another record high, rising 1.2 per cent to $US3,212 an ounce.

Oil prices rose on Friday, but still headed for a second straight week in the red on concerns about a prolonged trade war between the United States and China. Brent crude futures were last up 0.35 per cent at $US63.54 a barrel.

with AP

An ex-state Liberal leader repeatedly used cocaine with friends as a “means of escapism” to cope with the stressors of his job, a court has been told. 

David Speirs, 40, appeared in Adelaide Magistrates Court on Friday for sentencing submissions after pleading guilty in March to supplying drugs to two people in 2024.  

The former opposition leader, who quit parliament in October 2024, sat motionless in the dock with his hands clasped in his lap for the 85-minute hearing.

Speirs has been embroiled in controversy since he quit the leadership on August 8, declaring he had “just had a gutful” of leadership speculation and did not have the energy to keep fighting.

Defence counsel William Mickan said when Speirs became opposition leader in April 2022, he experienced “acute and immense stress” and “felt extreme pressure as he struggled to keep the party on track”.

He wasn’t able to engage in his previous “adaptive coping mechanism” of exercising and was introduced to cocaine by a third party in June 2024, using it on “several” other occasions as a “means of escapism”.

“He was using cocaine to address his stressors, interacting with friends and providing them with cocaine in pursuit of that escapism,” Mr Mickan said.

Reading from the statement of facts in the case, Magistrate Brian Nitschke said: “Two friends who had used cocaine previously were aware from the invite on social media that it might be available as part of their catch-up with Mr Speirs”. 

Director of Public Prosecutions Martin Hinton KC said when a Member of Parliament conducts themselves “in a manner totally inconsistent with what your public duty is, you undermine the very fabric or the very purpose of the parliament and what it stands for, and the public trust that we vest in parliamentarians”.

“There’s an element of hypocrisy in coming into this court and saying ‘don’t apply those laws to me’,” he said.

The offences occurred in the Adelaide suburb of Kingston Park on August 1 and between August 1 and 10.

Speirs had taken the drugs “in a safe environment with his friends – or, I think, his supposed friends – where the operation of the stressors on his mind were perhaps somewhat distant in terms of their immediate pressure on his mind”, Mr Hinton said. 

The offending was “an aberration of character” in the lower range of seriousness and Speirs was “otherwise of exemplary character” and had made significant contributions to SA, Mr Mickan said.

“He feels like he’s betrayed his friends and family as well as the wider public. And he’s had to explain to his parents his conduct,” he said.

Speirs had voluntarily submitted to drug tests which returned negative results and his prospects for rehabilitation were good, Mr Mickan said.  

He asked a fine or good behaviour bond be imposed and that no conviction be recorded. But Mr Hinton sought a conviction against Speirs and a “significant” fine.

Mr Nitschke noted he had seen media where Speirs had been the butt of “what might be said to be humour”.

“That would be humiliating for a person who has, over the years, built up a reputation and put everything into the community,” he said  

The very nature of Speirs’ position as opposition leader was the basis for extra curial punishment, Mr Mickan said.

“I say that Your Honour can take into account that there has been extensive reporting and that has destroyed his reputation,” he said.

But Mr Hinton said: “The media did not destroy this man’s reputation, he did.”  

Speirs will be sentenced on April 24.

China will impose 125 per cent tariffs on US goods from Saturday, up from the 84 per cent previously announced, the finance ministry says.

The hike comes after the White House kept the pressure on the world’s No.2 economy and second-biggest provider of US imports by singling it out for an additional tariff increase, having paused most of the “reciprocal” duties imposed on dozens of other countries.

“The US imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international and economic trade rules, basic economic laws and common sense and is completely unilateral bullying and coercion,” China’s Finance Ministry said in a statement.

The US and China have escalated trade war by raising tariffs even as US President Donald Trump hit a pause on tariffs for other countries.

Earlier the Trump’s administration said it was weighing offers from more than a dozen countries on tariff deals and is close to reaching agreements with some of them.

“USTR has informed us that there are maybe 15 countries now that have made explicit offers that we’re studying and considering and deciding whether they’re good enough to present the president,” White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told reporters at the White House, referring to the US trade representative.

Principals in the administration’s trade policy will meet at the White House on Thursday to discuss how to prioritise the separate negotiations, Hassett said.

Hassett repeatedly stated that there will be no off-the-shelf solutions but that negotiations are aimed at achieving tailored results.

According to earlier statements from the administration, representatives from more than 75 countries had already called the White House to express their willingness to engage in talks.

Trump announced on Wednesday that the US would pause most of its worldwide tariffs for 90 days except for those against China.

But Trump said earlier on Thursday that he would love to get a deal with China to end an escalating trade war.

He made the comments during a cabinet meeting opened to press.

Trump raised his tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 per cent after China placed retaliatory taxes of 84 per cent on imports from the US.

“There will be a transition cost and transition problems,” Trump said at the cabinet meeting.

“But in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”

The European Union was due to launch counter-tariffs on about 21 billion euros ($A37.59 billion) of US imports next Tuesday in response to Trump’s 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium but the bloc will put them on hold for 90 days, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

The EU is still assessing how to respond to US car tariffs and the broader 10 per cent levies that remain in place.

“We want to give negotiations a chance,” von der Leyen said on X.

“While finalising the adoption of the EU countermeasures that saw strong support from our Member States, we will put them on hold for 90 days.”

Trump’s sudden decision on Wednesday to pause most of his hefty new duties brought relief to battered markets and anxious global leaders, even as he ratcheted up trade tensions with China.

China’s yuan hit its lowest against the US dollar on Thursday since the global financial crisis.

Wall Street’s main indexes extended declines in afternoon trading on Thursday, with the benchmark S&P 500 plunging more than 5 per cent as investor concerns about the economic damage from US tariff policies returned to the fore.

with DPA and AP

A handful of Australians are among a group of additional victims of a cyber attack where criminals stole a quarter of a million dollars from their retirement nest eggs.

A superannuation fund had identified a small number of additional members who had been impacted in the mass cyber attack, the National Cyber Security Coordinator said on Friday.

“The funds are continuing to work with the financial regulators on steps to enhance their cyber security settings,” Lieutenant General Michelle McGuinness said.

AustralianSuper has confirmed a total of 10 members had a combined $750,000 transferred out of their accounts.

This was up from the previously revealed four victims who lost half a million dollars.

The super fund said the members were fully reimbursed this week and have been offered expert and independent support.

Its chief member officer Rose Kerlin has also spoken directly to several of those impacted.

“AustralianSuper’s systems remained secure in this incident, but we acknowledge the distress it has caused and thank members for their ongoing patience as we continue to work directly with those affected,” the fund said in a statement.

Thousands of superannuation accounts across multiple funds, including Hostplus, Rest, AustralianSuper, Insignia Financial and Australian Retirement Trust, were targeted in March in a coordinated attack.

Superannuation funds manage more than $4.1 trillion in assets on behalf of around 17 million Australians according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia.

AustralianSuper, which is the nation’s biggest fund, said hackers allegedly sought lump sum withdrawals from up to 600 accounts.

Its more than 3.4 million members subsequently struggled to log in amid high call-centre traffic and intermittent outages to online services, as the fund assured customers who saw $0 in their balance it was a temporary glitch.

Rest and Australian Retirement Trust confirmed its members were not financially affected in the latest update.

Funds have urged members to check for signs of fraud, ensure banking and contact details are correct, and change passwords if they are not unique to their account.