TMR

AUSTRALIAN Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will make his second visit to Southeast Asia in less than a week as he tries to shore up fuel supplies against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong on Tuesday depart for Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei, and then Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in a four-day diplomatic effort, they said in a statement. The prime minister was in Singapore on Friday to ensure that two-way energy supplies remained secure.

Australia is highlighting mutual dependence with Southeast Asian fuel suppliers to ensure deliveries continue, with the quid pro quo that it will do the same with liquefied natural gas and coal. Albanese’s center-left government has prioritized bolstering ties with the region to limit China’s sway and increase Australia’s influence.

Australia is now leveraging those relationships as it sits at the tail end of a long supply chain for crucial fuels. Ties with Association of Southeast Asian Nations are even more important as US foreign policy grows increasingly unpredictable under President Donald Trump.

Albanese and Wong are due to meet with Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah in Brunei and Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia.

“I have very good relations with both of them, and we have good country-to-country relations,” Albanese told Australian Broadcasting Corp. TV on Monday.

“The investment, frankly, that we have made in building up our relationships with Asean countries over the last four years, this is why you engage with partners,” he said. 

Brunei supplies 9% of Australia’s diesel and 11% of its fertilizer-grade urea imports, while Australia is a key supplier of food and agricultural products to the sultanate, according to government data. Malaysia is Australia’s third-largest source of refined fuel and supplies 10% of fertilizer-grade urea, while Australia provides 95% of Malaysia’s imported natural gas.

Trump announced plans for a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz hours after the US and Iran failed to reach a deal in talks in Pakistan, jeopardizing hopes of turning a fragile ceasefire into a lasting end to the war. Albanese said the US had not asked Australia to participate.

On Monday, he urged a resumption of peace talks between the US and Iran.

“We want to see an end to this conflict,” Albanese said. “It’s having a devastating impact on the global economy, and the longer it goes, the bigger the impact will be, and the longer the tail will be as well.” –BLOOMBERG

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WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will join direct peace talks between Israel and Lebanon at the State Department on Tuesday, according to the official schedule, Anadolu Ajansi reported.

Rubio is set to host Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Lebanese ambassador Nada Hamadeh Moawad at 11 am local time as part of ongoing diplomatic efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement.

The meeting will mark the launch of direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon and will be among the highest-level talks between the two sides in decades.

The discussion is expected to focus on securing a ceasefire, the disarmament of Hezbollah, and a broader peace arrangement.

The talks come amid ongoing fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the Israeli army expanded its air and ground offensive after the Iran war. More than 2,000 people have been killed and a million displaced since early March.

Hezbollah has rejected the planned negotiations in Washington, calling them “futile” and urging the Lebanese government to focus on confronting Israeli “aggression”. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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WASHINGTON — US Vice President JD Vance said Monday that talks with Iran in Pakistan made “a lot of progress” but warned that the failure to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz could “fundamentally change” the course of negotiations, Anadolu Ajansi reported, citing Fox News.

“I wouldn’t just say that things went wrong. I also think things went right. We made a lot of progress,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News.

He said Washington also clarified its negotiating position during the talks, including “the things we absolutely needed to see for the president of the United States to feel like he was getting a good deal.”

“The big question from here is whether the Iranians will have enough flexibility, whether the Iranians will accept the critical things that we need to see in order for things to get done,” he added.

Asked about the US’s red lines, Vance responded: “What the president of the United States has said is number one: Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. So all of our red lines flow from that fundamental premise.”

He also said the US expects Iran to continue steps toward reopening the Strait of Hormuz, calling it critical for global economic stability.

“Our expectation is that the Iranians are going to continue to make progress in opening the Straits of Hormuz, and if they don’t, it’s going to fundamentally change the negotiation that we have with them,” he said.

The US and Iran held direct talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, over the weekend, but they ended without an agreement.

The talks followed a two-week ceasefire announced earlier this month.

The negotiations in Pakistan marked the highest-level engagement between the US and Iran since 1979, though key disputes remained unresolved. — BERNAMA-ANADOLU

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WASHINGTON — A US district court in Florida has dismissed a US$10 billion defamation lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump against the Wall Street Journal, reported German news agency dpa.

Judge Darrin P Gayles said on Monday that Trump had failed to plausibly demonstrate that the newspaper acted with “actual malice” in publishing a report about a congratulatory letter allegedly bearing his name and sent to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The complaint also came “nowhere close” to meeting key legal standards, the judge wrote. 

The Wall Street Journal had reported last year on a purported letter sent to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003, which included Trump’s name and suggested a further connection between the two men.

The letter contained sexually suggestive text and featured a sketch of a female figure drawn with a marker. Trump denies authoring it.

Following the report, he filed a lawsuit seeking US$10 billion in damages against the newspaper and media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose portfolio includes the WSJ.

Trump has also taken legal action against the BBC, seeking a total of US$10 billion in damages.

The lawsuit, filed in Florida, relates to a dispute over the editing of a speech Trump gave on January 6, 2021, which the broadcaster used in its “Panorama” programme. That day, the US Capitol in Washington was stormed by supporters of the then-president.

The programme aired shortly before the US presidential election in November 2024. A hearing in the case is scheduled for February 2027.

Trump has gone after a slew of media organisations since he first became president, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN. –BERNAMA-dpa

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SYDNEY – Surging jet fuel prices may raise costs for Australia’s Qantas by up to Aus$800 million (US$570 million) in the second half of this year, the airline said Tuesday.

War in the Middle East has led jet fuel prices to more than double, and they remain “extremely volatile”, the carrier said in a market update.

The cost of jet fuel in the second half of 2026 is now expected to be Aus$3.1 billion to Aus$3.3 billion, it said — up from Aus$2.5 billion in its previous forecast.

Qantas said it was working with the Australian government and jet fuel suppliers, who were confident in fuel supply for the rest of April and well into May.

“We are closely monitoring the situation given the ongoing uncertainty in global fuel supply chains,” the airline group said.

Qantas said it was benefiting, however, from a boost in demand for travel to Europe as passengers avoided Middle East routes.

“In response, the Group has redeployed capacity from the US and its domestic network to increase flights to Paris and Rome.”

Qantas said unit revenue on international routes was now expected to grow by 4-6 percent year-on-year in the second half of 2026 — double its previous forecast.

For domestic flights, revenue was set to rise by about five percent, up from its previous expectation of a three-percent increase.

Qantas said it may have to take further action on fuel prices.

“The Group continues to closely monitor the dynamic environment and retains optionality to take further actions to mitigate fuel cost increases over time.” –AFP

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NEW YORK – The retrial of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein on a rape charge on which a jury was previously deadlocked begins Tuesday, although he will remain imprisoned for other offenses regardless of the verdict.

Weinstein is accused of the third-degree rape of Jessica Mann, who starred in the 2015 romantic commedy “This Isn’t Funny.”

The judge declared a mistrial last June after the jury foreperson refused to return to deliberate the case amid a jury-room feud.

Weinstein will now face a retrial on that count in the Manhattan court.

Weinstein’s spokesman Juda Engelmayer told AFP: “He is hopeful and expects a fair process where the facts will vindicate him.”

Weinstein, 74, and wheelchair-bound by ill-health, is already serving a 16-year prison term in a California case for the rape of a European actress more than a decade ago. He is appealing that conviction with a hearing scheduled for April 23.

The Oscar-winning Weinstein has faced a litany of prosecutions since allegations against him exploded into public in 2017 — helping to spur the “MeToo” movement.

The jury in June’s proceedings convicted Weinstein of sexual assault against movie producer Miriam Haley. He is appealing that conviction. He was acquitted of sexual assault against Polish-born actress, Kaja Sokola.

Haley testified in Weinstein’s original 2020 conviction, which resulted in a 23-year prison term, which was thrown out in 2024 after an appeals court found irregularities in the way witnesses were presented.

‘Threatened and derided’

Weinstein has hired a new legal team, including Jacob Kaplan as well as Marc Agnifilo who represents high profile figures including rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs.

Weinstein has claimed to be under threat at the notorious Rikers Island jail complex in the Bronx where he is being held, leaving him in solitary confinement for the most part.

“I’m constantly threatened and derided. I wouldn’t last long out there,” he told the Hollywood Reporter at the start of the year.

He claimed to have been punched “hard in the face” while waiting to make a telephone call in the prison.

“I fell on the floor, bleeding everywhere. I was hurt really badly,” he told the Reporter. –AFP

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SINGAPORE tightened its monetary policy settings in a widely expected move, becoming the first in Asia to respond to rising inflation risks stemming from a surge in energy prices linked to the Middle East conflict.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore, which uses the exchange rate as its main policy tool rather than interest rates, said Tuesday it would increase the slope of its policy band, as predicted by 15 of 18 economists in a Bloomberg survey. It left the width and the level at which the band is centered unchanged.

“Singapore’s imported energy costs have already risen,” the central bank said in a statement, noting that oil prices will likely remain elevated for some time even if supplies from the Middle East are restored. “As higher energy costs pass through supply chains worldwide, a broader range of Singapore’s import costs will increase.”

It expects a key gauge of core inflation to pick up and remain elevated over the next few quarters. The Singapore dollar was steady at 1.2734 versus the greenback after slightly paring gains following the announcement.

With the latest move, Singapore has emerged as one of the first in Asia to tighten monetary policy in response to the Iran war, while regional peers have largely stayed on hold as they assess the economic fallout from the conflict. Last week, the Reserve Bank of India and the Bank of Korea kept interest rates unchanged as they monitored the impact of surging oil prices on the economy.

The MAS, which holds four policy reviews per year, had loosened its settings twice in 2025 — January and April — to help support growth, then stood pat through the rest of last year as the trade-reliant nation largely shrugged off the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught. 

The MAS review comes as global bets on rate cuts this year have rapidly unraveled in the face of the oil price spike from the US-Israeli attack on Iran which has spread conflict to the broader Gulf region and all but stalled global trade via the Strait of Hormuz.

The MAS noted that there were “considerable risks” around the outlook for inflation and growth. It said that a more persistent disruption to energy supplies will exacerbate inflationary pressures worldwide, as well as deepen the drag on growth. At the same time, shortages of key intermediate inputs could curtail industrial production, it added. 

“A further tightening in global financial conditions or unexpected pullback in AI-related investment could compound downside risks to growth.”

Singapore’s gross domestic product shrank 0.3% in the first three months of the year compared to revised figures for the fourth quarter of 2025, according to an advance estimate from the Ministry of Trade and Industry on Tuesday.

The manufacturing sector saw a sharp 4.9% quarterly drop, a pullback from the 4.5% expansion in the October-December period when Singapore’s factories enjoyed a boost from the artificial-intelligence boom.

Still, GDP expanded 4.6% year-on-year in the first quarter. The ministry had raised its 2026 GDP growth forecast to 2%-4% in February, from an initial estimate of 1%-3%. An update to Singapore’s earlier GDP forecast of 2% to 4% in 2026 will be provided in May.

“While GDP growth remained resilient in the first quarter of 2026, the US-Israel-Iran conflict that began in end-February may weigh on economic activity in the coming quarters,” the ministry said in a statement. –BLOOMBERG

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