Australia news LIVE: Interest rate cut all but guaranteed after inflation slowdown; tsunami evacuations ordered in South America

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6.54am

Why the massive Russian earthquake produced such a weak tsunami

By Katrina Miller

When one of the largest earthquakes ever recorded struck off the coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia on Wednesday, tsunami warning centres around the Pacific quickly leapt into action.

They quickly issued advisories for the potential of colossal ocean waves that are often generated by big earthquakes. But later in the morning, the centres began to cancel those warnings as the big waves failed to appear. What happened?

Cars at a standstill in Panama City following the tsunami warning.

According to Diego Melgar, a geophysicist at the University of Oregon, part of the reason the tsunamis were weaker than anticipated may have to do with the size of the earthquake.

“There’s big,” he said. “And then there’s really, really, really big.”

Trump in no rush to appoint Canberra ambassador

By Matthew Knott

US President Donald Trump has shown no sign of appointing an ambassador to Canberra despite doing so for more than 50 other countries, fuelling accusations Australia is a low diplomatic priority as Trump weighs decisions on tariff rates and the future of the AUKUS defence pact.

The federal opposition has intensified its criticism of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for not securing a meeting with Trump this week after the president said he planned to increase his baseline tariff rate from 10 per cent to as much as 20 per cent.

The Trump administration has announced ambassadorial nominees for at least 52 countries, including Malta, Tunisia, the Bahamas, Latvia, Namibia and New Zealand.

The US Senate has approved Trump’s nominees for ambassadors to China, Japan, Canada, Mexico, France, Israel, Britain, Ireland, Turkey and Panama, allowing those diplomats to take up their posts at embassies in their host countries.

6.49am

What’s making news today

By Daniel Lo Surdo

Hello and welcome to the national news live blog. My name is Daniel Lo Surdo, and I’ll be helming our live coverage this morning.

Here’s what is making news today:

An interest rate is all but assured when the Reserve Bank meets next month, after inflation figures released on Wednesday found the annual rate fell to 2.1 per cent to the June quarter, marking the lowest inflation rate since early 2021. Treasurer Jim Chalmers celebrated the figures, labelling them “absolutely outstanding”. It comes in a sitting week when Labor is working to progress draft laws that would cap medicine under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme at $25, and pass student debt reduction and childcare reform legislation.
New alerts have forced evacuations in South America’s Pacific coast as fears of a devastating tsunami for the US and Japan faded on Wednesday after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off a sparsely populated Russian peninsula. Chile raised its warning to the highest level for most of its lengthy Pacific coast hours ago, with mass evacuations underway amid concerns of a tsunami. Warnings in the first hours after the 8.8 magnitude quake triggered immediate evacuations in Japan and Hawaii, while several people in Russia were hurt while rushing to safer ground.

The Australian sharemarket is set to fall on Thursday, after most US stocks retreated following the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold its main interest rate steady. The Federal Reserve’s decision is expected to frustrate President Donald Trump, who has been angrily lobbying for lower interest rates, but was widely expected on Wall Street. Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell pushed back on expectations for a September rate cut, saying inflation was still above the Fed’s two per cent target.