Israel’s cabinet has approved further measures to tighten Israel’s control over the occupied West Bank and make it easier for settlers to buy land, in ‌a move Palestinians called “a de facto annexation”.

The West Bank is among the territories that the Palestinians seek for ‌a future independent state. 

Much of it is under Israeli military control, with limited Palestinian self-rule in ‌some areas run by the western-backed Palestinian Authority (PA).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing an election later this year, deems the establishment of any Palestinian state a security threat.

His ruling coalition includes many pro-settler members who want Israel to annex the West Bank, land captured in the 1967 Middle East war, ‌to which ‌Israel cites biblical ⁠and historical ties.

Ministers voted in favour of beginning a process of ​land registration for the first time since 1967.

“We are continuing the revolution of settlement and strengthening our hold across all parts of our land,” said Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s government.

Defence Minister Israel Katz said land registration was a vital security measure designed to ensure control, enforcement, and full freedom of ⁠action for Israel in the area to protect ‌its citizens ​and safeguard national interests.

The cabinet said in a statement that registration was an “appropriate response to illegal land ​registration processes promoted ‌by the Palestinian Authority,” and would end disputes.

The PA presidency rejected the cabinet’s decision, saying ​it constitutes “a de facto annexation of occupied Palestinian territory and a declaration of the commencement of annexation plans aimed at entrenching the occupation through illegal settlement activity”.

US President Donald Trump has ruled out ​Israeli ​annexation of the West Bank, but his ​administration has not sought to curb Israel’s accelerated settlement ‌building, which the Palestinians say denies them a potential state by eating away at its territory.

The United Nations’ highest court said in a non-binding advisory opinion in 2024 that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements there are illegal and should be ended as soon as possible. 

Israel disputes this view, ​saying it has historical and biblical ties to the land.

The land registration adds to a series ​of measures taken earlier this ⁠month to expand control. 

While larger businesses are increasingly seeking credit to fuel growth, some companies are struggling just to keep the lights on, new data shows.

Overall business credit demand grew 2.3 per cent in the three months to December compared to the equivalent 2024 quarter, according to the latest Equifax Business Market Pulse report.

Still, overall business demand was nine per cent lower than four years before, and companies’ ability and willingness to take on debt depended heavily on their size, Equifax commercial general manager Brad Walters said.

“While large-scale businesses appear to be accelerating their credit appetite more quickly, SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) appear to be navigating a steadier path upward as they balance growth with external factors such as the pressures of inflation,” he said.

“They don’t always have the means to absorb potential shocks as easily as their larger competitors, so they’re choosing a steadier, more sustainable climb back to the top.”

The gap was clear across multiple sectors but was stark in retail, which recorded a 7.9 per cent surge in credit demand by large enterprises compared to a stagnant 0.7 per cent increase for SMEs.

However, the number of shops forced to close their doors was even more staggering.

“While we have seen strong demand growth among large retailers, the wider sector still shows some signs of pressure, with the past quarter revealing a substantial 64 per cent increase in retail insolvencies year-on-year,” Mr Walters said.

In hospitality, insolvencies remained high overall but slipped nine per cent compared to the equivalent 2024 quarter, but organisations’ relative appetite for credit told a familiar story about growth prospects.

Trade credit demand from large hospitality groups grew almost a fifth over the quarter, while overall credit growth from smaller players was marginal.

In construction, insolvencies remained high and relatively unchanged, while credit data showed bigger builders were confidently buying materials for their project pipelines, driving a 6.6 per cent lift in trade credit.

“During this same time period, small construction businesses appear to be avoiding broad debt, seen by a slight reduction (-0.7 per cent) in overall demand, and only borrowing for specific tools via asset finance (+4 per cent).”

Both Commonwealth Bank and Westpac last week noted they expected credit demand from businesses and households to remain resilient in 2026, despite the nation transitioning into an interest rate rise cycle.

Earlier this month, the central bank hiked rates for the first time in two years and economists believe more increases are on the cards this year, with the next most likely in May.

Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will soon unveil his overhauled front bench as he signals a shift to the right with a focus on issues such as immigration.

The newly elected Liberal leader spent his first few days in the role sketching key priorities after turfing out the party’s first female leader, Sussan Ley, on Friday following weeks of infighting.

Policy announcements are expected to be accompanied by a refreshed front bench, with exiled conservatives and leadership agitators Andrew Hastie and Jacinta Nampijinpa Price poised to return.

“They’re magnificent members of our team,” Mr Taylor said on Sunday of the pair, whose previous frontbench stints ended due to migration-related issues.

While offering few details on his party’s approach, Mr Taylor promised to pursue a stricter immigration policy, repeatedly flagging plans to reduce the nation’s migrant intake and tighten screening.

“The (migration) numbers under Labor have been just extraordinary – way beyond what this country can absorb,” he said.

“Standards have been too low, numbers have been too high and we haven’t explicitly shut the door on people who reject our way of life.”

The Hume MP said he would unveil a full policy “in the coming days”.

Mr Taylor has insisted the coalition is not trying to become “One Nation lite” as it bleeds voter support to the anti-immigration party.

The first poll since Mr Taylor became Liberal leader, published by Nine newspapers on Monday, showed Labor with 32 per cent of the primary vote and One Nation and the coalition tied on 23 per cent.

The Resolve poll of 1800 people conducted between February 8 and Saturday found a Mr Taylor-led coalition three percentage points ahead of a Ms Ley-led opposition.

One Nation recorded primary support of 27 per cent in the latest Newspoll, conducted before Mr Taylor toppled Ms Ley as leader, with the coalition on 18 per cent.

Former senior immigration official Abul Rizvi said Mr Taylor’s pointed tough-on-immigration stance appeared to be directly influenced by One Nation’s rise.

“He reads the polls as closely as anybody,” Mr Rizvi told AAP.

However, he noted strong character requirements already existed for migrants looking to enter Australia and they had only been tightened by anti-hate crime laws introduced after the Bondi terror attack.

Labor had also tightened the previous coalition government’s policies on student and working holiday visas that drove a big increase in migration to Australia in 2022-23, Mr Rizvi said.

“Mr Taylor may have forgotten his government also introduced fee-free student visa applications and fee-free working holiday maker applications,” he said. 

“The Labor government were slow to reverse those policies, but they did get rid of them.”

Mr Taylor and deputy Jane Hume have also repeatedly vowed to offer lower taxes, a renewed focus on housing affordability and the end of an “ideological approach” to energy policies.

Senator Hume said Australia needed to be “open-minded” on nuclear energy if the country was to reduce emissions and make power cheaper.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused Ukraine of delaying the restart of a pipeline carrying Russian oil to Eastern Europe ‌via Ukraine in order to pressure Hungary to drop its opposition to Ukraine’s future membership of the European ‌Union.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said on Thursday that Russian oil destined for eastern Europe and transiting via ‌the Ukrainian part of the Druzhba pipeline had been suspended since January 27 due to a Russian attack.

Fico, who has maintained relations with Moscow after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 and has blamed European partners for prolonging the war by supplying weapons to Kyiv, said oil supplies have become a ‌political issue, but ‌did not provide ⁠any evidence to back up his claim.

“We have information that (the pipeline) ​should have been fixed,” Fico told reporters after meeting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Bratislava on Sunday.

“I perceive what is happening around oil today as political blackmail toward Hungary due to the uncompromising stance of Hungary on Ukraine’s EU membership,” Fico said.

He said the pressure was that “if Hungary agrees ⁠with EU membership, perhaps oil supplies arrive”.

A spokesperson for ‌Ukraine’s ​foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Fico’s comments echoed Hungarian Foreign Minister ​Peter Szijjarto, who ‌on Friday accused Ukraine of holding up the resumption of flows.

Slovakia and Hungary have continued ​to buy Russian gas and oil despite EU efforts to switch to alternative supplies completely, with both countries arguing that their lack of access to sea terminals and alternative routes made diversification ​difficult ​and expensive.

Hungary opposes Ukraine’s EU entry. ​

Fico reiterated that Slovakia would agree to it ‌if Kyiv meets all necessary conditions, but he added that countries like Serbia, Albania and Montenegro were much better prepared for membership than Ukraine.

Fico also said he did not believe either side of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and could not say who was responsible for the damage to the pipeline.

“There have been ​so many lies from one side and the other that I do not have the ​courage to say who ⁠bombed or destroyed part of the oil infrastructure,” Fico told reporters. 

Mini-sabbaticals. Adult gap years. Micro-retirement. 

Extended career breaks go by many names and take many forms, from using the time between jobs to explore or taking an employer-approved leave to becoming a digital nomad or saving up for a months-long adventure. 

Creating space for a reset, whether mental, physical or spiritual, is the common thread. 

More companies are allowing weeks or months of paid or unpaid leave as a way to retain valued employees, according to Kira Schrabram, an assistant professor of management at the University of Washington’s business school.  

Seven years ago, she brought her experience researching burnout to the Sabbatical Project, an initiative founded by Harvard Business School Senior Lecturer DJ DiDonna that promotes sabbaticals as “a sacred human ritual” to which more people should have access. 

Schrabram, DiDonna and University of Notre Dame Professor Emeritus Matt Bloom interviewed 50 US professionals who took an extended break from non-academic jobs. 

From the responses, they identified three types of sabbaticals: working holidays that involved pursuing a passion project; “free dives” that combined exciting adventures with periods of rest; and quests undertaken by burned-out people who engaged in life-changing explorations once they had recovered sufficiently. 

More than half of the interview subjects self-funded their hiatuses. 

In an article for the Harvard Business Review, the researchers made a case for sabbaticals as a tool employers could use to recruit, keep and foster talented workers. 

Roshida Dowe was 39 years old and working as a corporate lawyer in California when she got laid off in 2018. 

Instead of seeking a new job right away, she decided to spend a year travelling. 

Struck by how many how many people asked how she managed it, Dowe decided to try working as an online career-break coach.

She and Stephanie Perry, a former pharmacy technician who also took a gap year to travel, co-founded ExodUS Summit, a virtual conference for black women to talk about taking a sabbatical or moving abroad. 

Speakers at the event discuss both practical considerations like finances, safety and health care, and more philosophical topics like the value of rest and breaking free of intergenerational trauma.

Showcasing women who set off to see the world is powerful because “a lot of us aren’t open to possibilities we haven’t been shown before,” said Dowe, who moved to Mexico City as part of her own reinvention.

“When I coach women who are looking to take a sabbatical, the main thing they’re looking for is permission,” she said. 

For Perry, a 2014 holiday in Brazil served as a catalyst; she met people staying in her hostel who were travelling for months, not days. 

She researched budget travel and found people making it work on $US40 ($A56) a day.

Before that, “I thought for sure people who travelled long term were all trust fund babies,” she said. 

Cost is a common obstacle for people considering a break. 

There are creative ways around that, said Perry, who has legal residency in Mexico and an apartment in Bogota, Colombia.

“House-sitting is the reason I can work very little and travel a lot,” she said. 

Perry, who has a YouTube channel where she posts videos about travelling or becoming an expat as a black American, raises money through her subscribers to sponsor black women on sabbaticals. 

When Ashley Graham took a break from her work at a non-profit in Washington, DC, she mapped out a road trip that included visiting friends with whom she could stay for free.

“It was a great way to connect with my past life,” said Graham, who subsequently relocated to New Orleans after loving the city during her sabbatical travels.

Taylor Anderson is a certified financial planner based in Vancouver, Washington, who specialises in helping clients plan for sabbaticals. 

She said many of the same principles apply to saving up for one as they do to saving for retirement. 

Both require financial discipline as well as a willingness to recognise when it’s safe to spend.

“We talk about money breathing. Sometimes it’s inhaling, sometimes it’s exhaling,” Anderson, who has experienced the benefits of a sabbatical reboot herself, said. 

“Often we find that people do have money saved, but they’re afraid to spend it.”

Can everyone afford to take a month or more without a pay cheque? Of course not. But for those who have built up a nest egg, “the cost is actually less than you might assume,” she said.

Artists Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin put two employees in charge of their San Francisco gallery in 2018 to spend the summer in France and Ireland.

“It was terrifying,” said Rewitzer, who described himself as having been a workaholic and control freak. 

“It was a huge exercise in trust.”

When they returned to San Francisco, Rewitzer saw the city differently. 

He felt his life had been out of balance — too much work and too little time in nature.

That shift in perspective led the couple to buy what they thought would be a weekend home in the Sierra Nevada. 

It turned into their full-time home when they shut down their gallery during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“It all comes back to that same place of being willing to take chances,” Rewitzer said.

Taking a break from college to be a ski bum in Vail, Colorado, set Gregory Du Bois on a path of taking mini-sabbaticals throughout his corporate IT career. 

Each time he took a new job, he negotiated for extended time off, explaining to his managers that to perform at his best, he needed breaks to recharge.

“It’s such a way of life that I almost don’t think of it as sabbaticals,” said Du Bois, who retired from tech and began working as a life coach in Sedona, Arizona. 

“For me, it’s a spiritual regeneration.”

A “big measles outbreak” in parts of London is affecting unvaccinated children under the age of 10, the UK Health Security Agency has confirmed.

It said the outbreak in schools and nurseries in north-east London had left some children requiring hospital treatment.

The agency had previously reported 34 laboratory-confirmed measles cases in Enfield from January 1 to February 9.

More than 60 suspected cases of measles have been reported by seven schools and a nursery in Enfield, the Sunday Times reports.

Measles is a highly infectious viral illness that can spread very easily among people who are not fully vaccinated.

While many people recover, the illness can lead to serious complications such as pneumonia, brain inflammation and, in rare cases, long-term disability or death.

“Measles is a nasty illness for any child, but for some it can lead to long-term complications and tragically death, but is so easily preventable with two doses of the MMRV vaccine,” said Dr Vanessa Saliba, consultant epidemiologist at the UK Health Security Agency.

“If your child has missed any of their doses, it’s important to catch up as soon as possible, giving them vital protection against this highly contagious disease, but also helping to protect more vulnerable children around them who are too young or unable to have the vaccine due to a health condition.”

She said with Easter holidays fast approaching, it is a timely reminder to families travelling overseas to ensure all family members, especially children, are vaccinated.

Global health officials announced earlier this year the UK is no longer considered to have eliminated measles.

Figures published last August by the UK Health Security Agency showed just 64.3 per cent of five-year-olds in Enfield had received both doses of the MMR vaccine in 2024/25 – one of the lowest rates in the country.

Enfield Council said it is working closely with the UK Health Security Agency, the National Health Service and local partners to respond to a confirmed outbreak of measles in the borough.

There is no treatment for measles, only the vaccination to prevent catching it, which is part of the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) MMRV injection.

Two doses of a measles-containing vaccine provide high levels of protection and help prevent further outbreaks.

The Reserve Bank will shine new light on why it decided to hike interest rates, while fresh data should offer insight into whether a further increase is on the cards.

Minutes from the central bank’s last meeting in early February, where it unanimously decided to kick up interest rates 25 basis points to 3.85 per cent, will be made public on Tuesday.

While governor Michelle Bullock has fronted press conferences and two federal parliamentary hearings on the rate call, the minutes are expected to reveal the factors that led to the decision.

Ms Bullock has previously said a resurgence in inflation forced the bank’s hand, with the speed of consumer spending and business investment catching the RBA’s board off guard.

Looking ahead, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics will help fill in more of the picture for the central bank for future rate calls.

Wednesday will reveal wage data for the final quarter of 2025.

NAB senior economist Taylor Nugent said wage growth was largely expected to come in at 3.4 per cent year-on-year, which would be in line with forecasts from the Reserve Bank.

He said a boost in wages in services professions would likely see a 0.8 per cent rise for the quarter.

“There will be a boost of around five basis points from the October tranche of pay rises related to the work value case for aged care workers,” Mr Nugent said.

“Wage price index growth has been supported over the past year by public sector wage agreements that incorporate some catch up growth.”

Thursday will see all-important labour force figures for January released.

After December’s figures saw a drop in unemployment to 4.1 per cent, driven by more 15 to 24-year-olds heading into work, the jobless rate for the start of 2026 is likely to tick up.

Mr Nugent said there would likely be a 20,000-person boost in unemployment, with the rate also growing to 4.2 per cent.

“The past three Januarys have seen a 10-15 basis point rise in the unemployment rate that was partially reversed in February because there have been more people unemployed but attached to a job they are waiting to start than was normal prior to the pandemic,” he said

“After the surprise two-tenths fall in December, it does support the expectation for some reversal in January.”

An encouraging update on inflation has meanwhile helped calm Wall Street investors wracked by worry over how artificial-intelligence technology may upend the business world.

The S&P 500 barely budged on Friday, a day after tumbling to one of its worst losses since Thanksgiving.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 48 points, or 0.1 per cent, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.2 per cent.

Australian share futures climbed 26 points, or 0.29 per cent, to 11,215.

The S&P/ASX200 fell 125.9 points on Friday, down 1.39 per cent, to 8,917.6, as the broader All Ordinaries lost 143 points, or 1.54 per cent, to 9,138.8.

The freshly minted Liberal leader has doubled down on plans for a hardline immigration policy, pledging to cut migrant numbers and focus on those who reject Australian values.

But Angus Taylor has offered few details of how the coalition he now leads will deliver on the promise to weed out those who “reject our way of life”.

The new opposition leader, who toppled Sussan Ley in a partyroom vote on Friday, has been laying out his plan for the adrift Liberals as the conservative party bleeds votes to the anti-immigration One Nation.

Mr Taylor and deputy Jane Hume have been quick to vow to lower taxes, focus on housing affordability and take “green ideology” out of energy policies.

But the leaders have also been vocal on immigration, saying that migrant numbers needed to be driven down.

“Standards have been too low, numbers have been too high and we haven’t explicitly shut the door on people who reject our way of life, who don’t believe in our core values,” Mr Taylor told Sky News on Sunday.

High migration put stress on housing and infrastructure, he added, suggesting intelligence agencies could play a greater role in assessing would-be residents.

“It’s important … they do assess whether or not these people have demonstrated in the past that they reject our way of life or whether they want to bring the hate and violence from another place,” Mr Taylor said.

But even with an injection of new leadership energy, the party finds itself in a difficult position, pollster Kos Samaras said.

The Liberals faced the same challenges as those present under Ms Ley, including the loss of support among most voter groups.

Mr Samaras said some Gen X and right-wing cohorts who formerly voted for the Liberals were rejecting the established centre-right political party, while progressive voters and women were also being driven away.

“Angus Taylor cannot be ultra conservative on certain issues and then try to pretend he can talk to progressive Melbourne and Sydney,” he told AAP.

“He’s going to get wedged as Sussan Ley was wedged.”

The founder of a key Liberal women’s network has quit her organisation and the party two days after its first female leader was turfed out in the leadership spill.

Charlotte Mortlock founded Hilma’s Network in 2021 to boost female representation in the Liberal party.

She worked on the proposal to have gender quotas in the party, which was recently dumped by the NSW branch.

“Due to recent events I have decided there are other ways I can support women and Australia,” Ms Mortlock said.

“I have decided the time has come for me to step down as executive director of Hilma’s Network and I have also relinquished my Liberal Party membership.”

Mr Taylor toppled Ms Ley 34 votes to 17 in the ballot, ending her tenure after only nine months.

Shortly after the spill, Ms Ley revealed she would spend the coming weeks in her regional NSW electorate of Farrer before resigning from parliament.

A by-election will then be needed to choose a new MP for Farrer in what looms as a significant early test for Mr Taylor.

He will need to prove he can stave off challenges from independents and One Nation, which has been polling above the coalition.

A young entrepreneur says there’s still plenty of potential in the used car empire he founded, and he’s not going anywhere despite selling it for $120 million.

Matt Wright sold MCT Automotive Group, owner of the cars website Cars4Us, to Toyota Tsusho Corporation for the hefty sum just six years after starting the company.

The business has ballooned from humble beginnings of four people working from a Brisbane warehouse that could hold seven cars to turning over roughly 4000 vehicles a week, with tidy annual revenues of about $500 million.

What began as a wholesale operation soon branched into sales and trade-ins to the public, with a commitment to offering people more than regular dealers for their old car, while tapping into the rising digital habits of car buyers.

“When we started, the largest online car buying company was buying 60, 70, cars a week. We got there within 60 days,” Mr Wright told AAP.

“Fast forward to today, six years later, we buy 350 on a bad week, but realistically, 400 to 450 vehicles a week.”

The flagship lot in Brisbane’s Eagle Farm has ballooned to hold about 1000 cars, the second-largest in Australia.

MCT’s scale aims to condense the car-buying experience potentially into a single trip, while the turnover rate supports competitive prices.

“Typically, when you’re trying to buy a car, it’s a Saturday, you’ve got four dealerships written down, you spend an hour on each dealership, driving between each one. It’s a nightmare,” Mr Wright said.

“What we like to do is get people in and you just stay with us and if you don’t like the car you came in to buy, we’ve got three, four, five other variants or combinations of that car.”

Mr Wright came to Australia from the UK as a 20-year-old backpacker and quickly fell in love with the country.

“I was taken aback and couldn’t imagine anywhere else I would want to spend my life,” he said.

“Being the other side of the world on your own really accelerated that learning for life and, quite possibly, is the reason why I was successful in business, perhaps at … an earlier age than most.”

Another key to Mr Wright’s performance is his work ethic, and like many founders, he regularly clocks up working weeks of 80 to 100 hours.

“I’ve learned to refocus and adjust what I’m spending that time on, and through the continued support of a growing team of good people around me, and good leaders in the business,” he said.

“But workload, I would say, has never really changed.”

And despite his $120 million windfall, Mr Wright will continue doing what he does best to assist with the handover to Toyota Tsusho, Toyota Group’s Tokyo Stock Exchange-listed arm.

“I’m excited to be able to stay and help steer the business over the next couple of years which, regardless of selling it, I want nothing more than to see the company, in the group, reach its potential,” he said.

“It might be the biggest retail site on the east coast, it might be the biggest car buyer in the country, but it really does have a lot more potential than that.”

The future might be unclear beyond this particular horizon, but the young entrepreneur knows one thing for certain: there’s more work to be done.

“I’m certainly not contemplating a life that doesn’t involve running more businesses, running my own businesses, but I’m fully committed to these guys for a couple of years,” Mr Wright said.

“My father’s 75 and still works, you know? I’ll be doing the same.”

Australia’s trade minister is confident a long-stalled agreement can be reached after high-level negotiations with European Union counterparts.

Trade Minister Don Farrell engaged in constructive and positive discussions with EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic and agriculture commissioner Christophe Hansen in Brussels on Friday.

Negotiations over the proposed free trade agreement began in 2018 but have fallen twice at the final hurdle as Australia pushes for greater access to European markets for local beef producers.

EU negotiators have so far refused to budge on the key demand.

Good progress was made in ⁠narrowing gaps on a small number ​of outstanding matters, the trade ministers said in a joint statement on Friday.

“The ministerial-level engagement was constructive and positive and allowed the two sides to converge positions on a range of issues,” the statement said.

“The principals will now report back to their leaders.”

Despite years of tough negotiations, agriculture remains the deal’s central sticking point.

Australia initially pushed for more than 30,000 tonnes of beef, while Europe tried to whittle down the quota to protect domestic farmers who oppose more meat flooding the market and eating into their income.

However, negotiators are still at an impasse over some import restrictions.

Even though other free trade deals Europe has signed, such as with Canada and New Zealand, allocated tens of thousands of tonnes of tariff-free meat, they haven’t been able to use the vast majority due to Europe’s strict import controls.

A free trade deal would give Australian exporters greater access to global markets of more than 450 million people.

After two days of meetings, Senator Farrell said he was pleased with the progress made during his short trip.

“As I’ve said repeatedly, any agreement must be in Australia’s national interest and provide real benefit for Australian business, producers, exporters and workers,” he said.

“I am confident that both Australia and the European Union will reach agreement that benefits both of our economies.”

It comes months after Mr Sefcovic travelled to Australia, where he revealed the final stages of negotiations could be finalised in 2026.

“That is achievable,” he said in November.