SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Governments are rushing to secure supplies of critical crop nutrients ahead of autumn/spring planting, as the Middle East war chokes off the flow of fertiliser and amplifies fears of a global food crisis.
Fertilisers exemplify the tight link between energy and food prices, underpinning harvests worldwide. The Middle East is a vital supplier.
With the Strait of Hormuz effectively shut, shipments have ground to a halt as they have for fuel.
Prices of urea – the most widely used nitrogen fertiliser – have surged, with phosphate supplies also at risk. Much of global stock is tied to the Persian Gulf.
The Coalition has continued to grill the government – and particularly Energy Minister Chris Bowen – on the unfolding fuel crisis in parliament today.
During the course of many of Bowen’s responses to Coalition questions in the House of Representatives, shadow ministers raised points of order against Bowen.
Sometimes, when a point of order was raised it was immediately dismissed because the relevant minister has “concluded their answer”. Each time this has happened this week following a response from Bowen, the opposition benches have shouted out: “He’s done”.
Liberal frontbencher Melissa McIntosh was ejected from the chamber after one of her attempts to skewer Bowen. See more here.
Meanwhile, Aged Care Minister Sam Rae said Australia has enough fuel and stocks are arriving on time, after being asked about seniors community transport services being cancelled in regional areas because of the cost of fuel.
Sometimes all it takes is one person to bring the human impact of a major historical event into sharp focus – tank man in Tiananmen Square in 1989, Syrian toddler and refugee Alan Kurdi lying dead on a beach in Turkey in 2015.
It’s possible that Mahdi Saheli has become the latest example. The Lebanese professional cello player has gained a worldwide following and appreciation, after he began performing in the rubble left by Israeli airstrikes on Beirut, captured on camera.
Saheli, who began posting his rubble performances in late 2024, has had his most recent video viewed hundreds of thousands of times. Some viewers have interpreted his performance – of Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian’s Andantino – as an act of resistance.
For his part, Saheli has said his actions reflect how music can be used as a spiritual refuge in times of hardship: “In the midst of war and destruction, music plays a melody of hope, turning the sighs of suffering into melodies that reflect the resilience of the human spirit,” he wrote on Instagram on March 15.
A reporter on the ground in Iran’s capital Tehran says people there are asking each other about Donald Trump’s claims of negotiations to end the war, as there’s no information from the Iranian side that this is happening.
“Yesterday, officials denied the existence of any negotiations, and that position has not changed today. We’ve only had the military announcing new waves of strikes against Israel and other targets,” reporter Mohammed Vall told his agency Al Jazeera.
“The fighting is taking precedence here, and nobody is talking about diplomacy.”
It comes after The New York Times reported that the US has offered Iran a 15-point proposal for concluding the war, and Trump signalled that Iran had offered a “present” as a show of good faith in negotiations he has claimed are ongoing
Energy Minister Chris Bowen is giving parliament an update on the latest fuel shortages as the Coalition continues to push the government on the lack of access to petrol at service stations around the country.
Bowen said 187 stations had no diesel in NSW, and 32 had no stock.
“That’s down 19 on yesterday,” Bowen said. “That’s out of a total of 2417 service stations in NSW.”
He said 55 service stations had no diesel in Queensland, and 35 had no regular unleaded, the same as yesterday.
“In Victoria, 134 with a lack of one or more grades. That’s down 28 on the last report,” he said.
Earlier today, Treasurer Jim Chalmers gave a press conference where he said he expected the war in the Middle East to push inflation up higher for longer.
He also briefly talked about new laws being introduced to parliament today to increase fines for petrol price gouging.
Chalmers said the measure would help the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission crack down on bad actors.
The Coalition has continued its attack on Energy Minister Chris Bowen, as they attempt to paint the Labor frontbencher as responsible for fuel shortages across the country.
Speaking to journalists at Parliament House earlier today, deputy Liberal leader Jane Hume asked: “Where is the plan to deal with [the crisis]? Simply deferring the problem to a national czar who is yet to come out with a distribution and supply plan, is Chris Bowen abdicating his responsibilities.”
“He’s clearly a minister in over his head. We need to hear more from the government to give Australians the confidence and certainty that they need, to make sure that our economy can keep ticking over throughout the troubles in the Middle East,” Hume said.
Hume maintained that the Coalition’s position of blaming the government was fair, despite the global nature of the issue, saying: “I think it’s quite fair and reasonable to say that the government’s responsibility is to have a plan to deal with the issue.
“This is not a government that is in control of the situation. Something different seems to happen every day. Now we’re getting these daily updates from premiers around the country about where those fuel shortages are, just how many petrol stations and bowsers are affected by these shortages. This doesn’t sound like a government is in control.”
More details have emerged about the Pentagon’s plans to send soldiers from the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, even as President Donald Trump claims peace talks are imminent.
Two battalions with about 800 paratroopers each will be sent from the division’s Immediate Response Force, a brigade of soldiers who can deploy anywhere in the world within 18 hours, The New York Times reported, citing two anonymous defence officials.
The troops would land in a location within striking distance of Iran, the officials told the Times, and could theoretically be used to capture Iran’s key oil expert terminal on Kharg Island.
There are about 50,000 US troops already in the Middle East, and another 2500 Marines are expected to arrive later this week.
Marines specialise in missions that include supporting US embassies and evacuating civilians, while the Airborne Division soldiers are trained to parachute into hostile territory to secure key areas or assets.
Foreign Minister Penny Wong has told her Israeli counterpart that Australia opposes any Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and expressed concern at the surge of settler violence in the West Bank.
“Australia supports Lebanon’s sovereignty – so we do not want to see occupation of southern Lebanon by Israel,” Wong said in a statement after speaking to Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar last night.
“Australia is gravely concerned at the expansion of the conflict in Lebanon, the loss of life and displacement of more than one million civilians.
“We discussed Hezbollah’s continued strikes on Israel and agreed they must disarm in line with previous agreements.”
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has accused the Coalition of harvesting people’s data to disseminate “political propaganda” through a website the parties created to allow motorists to report fuel shortages.
During an appearance on Sky News this morning, Bowen said the “No Fuel Here” website – launched by the Liberal, National and LNP parties yesterday – served no public use because citizens could not access data submitted to the database.
“This information will not be published, so it’s only for their own use. So you report something, they’re not going to publish. It’s not for community benefit,” Bowen said.
“But then when you look at [it], you put [data] in, it says, ‘by submitting this report, you’re consenting to receiving communications from the Nationals the Liberal Party and the LNP’. This is data harvesting. This is getting people’s email address to send them political propaganda.”
Users of the website are directed to submit the station location and type of petrol out of stock before being asked to enter their full name and email address.
Nationals leader Matt Canavan said yesterday in a statement that the website was launched “because we believe regional Australians deserve to be heard. Every report submitted tells us where the crisis is real, where it’s urgent, and where the government needs to act”.
