It’s bushfire season once again in Australia. A record-breaking heatwave, plus intense winds, have resulted in a tinder-box landscape and hard-to-control blazes in large areas of the south east. “To be frank,” said Jason Heffernan, chief officer of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority on Tuesday, “the state is very, very dry. Any fire that takes hold will be a challenge for the community.” The fires ...
It’s bushfire season once again in Australia. A record-breaking heatwave, plus intense winds, have resulted in a tinder-box landscape and hard-to-control blazes in large areas of the south east. “To be frank,” said Jason Heffernan, chief officer of Victoria’s Country Fire Authority on Tuesday, “the state is very, very dry. Any fire that takes hold will be a challenge for the community.” The fires are the worst since 2019-20, that black summer of ash horizons and filthy air, when 19 million hectares of land were burned, 33 people died and 3 billion animals were impacted. Cricket, like everything, was affected. Big Bash and school matches were cancelled and a Sheffield Shield game played in heavy smoke was likened by the New South Wales spinner Steve O’Keefe to “smoking 80 cigarettes.” In the small communities of Sarsfield and Clifton Creek in rural Victoria, the 2019-20 fires were devastating. Many had to start again from nothing. John Kinniburgh and his wife Carol were one of 80 families to lose their homes in Sarsfield. “We had a cedar house,” Kinniburgh says, “with decks all around, and once it got started it just exploded. It was certainly a shock. There was lots of devastation and drama. The community went through the emergency stage of just surviving, then you begin to craft out your recovery. I was involved in the Sarsfield recovery group and we thought about how we wanted to look in five years, ten years. The whole process was very positive, some new people moved in, some people rebuilt, it all felt more connected.” The idea to hold a cricket match to bring together the two fire-damaged communities came from the local fire brigade. Phil Schneider, a volunteer, salvaged some tea tree wood from a peat paddock fire that had burned for weeks and took it down to a wood turner in Lake Tyers. Together they worked on it until the Sandhill Ashes urn was born – named after a hill between the two communities. View image in fullscreen Fire crews put out spot fires in Sar...
Washington’s latest defence strategy of providing “more limited US support” to its allies is expected to damage domestic backing for leaders in Japan and South Korea and spur greater momentum among regional countries towards military self-reliance. Analysts also warn that such a realignment could lead to a “radical swing” in regional security calculations, and in the case of South Korea, weaken it...
Washington’s latest defence strategy of providing “more limited US support” to its allies is expected to damage domestic backing for leaders in Japan and South Korea and spur greater momentum among regional countries towards military self-reliance. Analysts also warn that such a realignment could lead to a “radical swing” in regional security calculations, and in the case of South Korea, weaken its deterrence against the North. In the National Defence Strategy (NDS) released by the US Defence Department last Friday, Washington called on allies and partners to take “primary responsibility” for defending themselves. Advertisement The Pentagon also made clear that Washington would offer limited support in line with the shift in US President Donald Trump’s security focus away from the Indo-Pacific region. “Ours is not a strategy of isolation,” the document states, adding that through the America-first lens, Washington’s “alliances and partners have an essential role to play”. Advertisement Reiterating Trump’s long-standing view that the US alliance system was “one-sided” in favour of allies, the NDS echoes the National Security Strategy released last month, which urges America’s partners to raise their defence expenditure. Pointing to a “new global standard for defence spending” of 5 per cent of gross domestic product, the NDS states that this should apply to allies and partners around the world, “not just in Europe”.
Advantest Corp. seeks to speed up its production capacity expansion plans for chip testing equipment, a sign of upbeat sentiment around spending on artificial intelligence hardware. The chip equipment maker said it was targeting annual capacity of at least 5,000 system-on-chip testers by March 2027, up from 3,000 as of July last year. That level would be the “bare minimum,” Chief Executive Officer...
Advantest Corp. seeks to speed up its production capacity expansion plans for chip testing equipment, a sign of upbeat sentiment around spending on artificial intelligence hardware. The chip equipment maker said it was targeting annual capacity of at least 5,000 system-on-chip testers by March 2027, up from 3,000 as of July last year. That level would be the “bare minimum,” Chief Executive Officer Douglas Lefever said. “Looking ahead, with AI-related demand remaining strong, we anticipate sustained growth in the tester market in calendar year 2026,” Lefever said on an earnings call Wednesday, adding that the company’s business in China appeared “quite healthy.” Advantest, which sells equipment that can identify defects in advanced chips, is benefiting from a global spending surge in on data centers and other AI infrastructure. Last year, its perceived low production capacity prompted investor concerns that it could miss revenue opportunities due to supply constraints. The Tokyo-based company on Wednesday raised its full-year operating profit forecast by 21% to ¥454 billion ($3 billion), topping the average analyst estimate of about ¥385 billion. The company now expects net sales of ¥1.07 trillion for the fiscal year ending in March, supported by robust data-center investment. For the December quarter, Advantest reported a better-than-expected 64% jump in operating profit on a 25.5% rise in sales. The company said a slowdown it anticipated in the second half of the fiscal year failed to materialize, while demand is expected to soar from suppliers of both AI-related applications and high-performance DRAM.
Surteco Group SE is considering selling assets including its skirtings and technical profile businesses that could be valued at €100 million ($120 million) to €200 million in total, according to people familiar with the matter. The Frankfurt-listed company is working with an adviser on the potential divestment, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Consider...
Surteco Group SE is considering selling assets including its skirtings and technical profile businesses that could be valued at €100 million ($120 million) to €200 million in total, according to people familiar with the matter. The Frankfurt-listed company is working with an adviser on the potential divestment, said the people, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. Considerations are preliminary and Surteco could decide to also sell additional assets or to keep them for longer, depending on buyer interest, the people said. Shares of Surteco have fallen about 44% in the past 12 months, giving the Frankfurt-listed company a market value of about €190 million. Surteco manufactures decorative surface materials, edging and profiles for furniture, flooring and interior design. Its market capitalization reached its peak at about €620 million in November 2021. A representative for Surteco declined to comment.
saifulasmee chede/iStock via Getty Images Brightline East and West show that some munis depend more on the cash flow of a single project. Learn how to spot risk factors and make smarter infrastructure investing decisions. What is Project Finance? Project finance is a way of funding infrastructure where bond repayment depends mainly on the performance of a single project, not on a government’s tax ...
saifulasmee chede/iStock via Getty Images Brightline East and West show that some munis depend more on the cash flow of a single project. Learn how to spot risk factors and make smarter infrastructure investing decisions. What is Project Finance? Project finance is a way of funding infrastructure where bond repayment depends mainly on the performance of a single project, not on a government’s tax revenues. Investors are paid from the project’s own cash flow and liquidity, which means factors like execution, operating results, and access to refinancing play a central role. When municipal bonds are structured this way, they behave less like traditional munis and more like stand-alone businesses that must manage cash carefully to survive changing market conditions. Brightline East and Brightline West: Municipal Bonds Backed by One Project’s Cash Flow Municipal investors are used to sorting credits by familiar labels: general obligation, essential service revenue, appropriation, and the rest. Brightline is a useful reminder that another category exists inside the tax-exempt market: private, single-asset infrastructure financed with private activity bonds, where the ultimate driver of outcomes is not a tax base but enterprise cash flow, liquidity, and access to refinancing. That distinction matters because Brightline’s story has shifted. It’s no longer just about building rails and growing ridership. It’s also about capital structure, amendments, exchange mechanics, and how stakeholders allocate pain (and upside) when the original plan collides with the reality of higher rates, slower ramps, cost increases and tighter risk tolerance. Brightline East vs West: Munis in Focus Brightline Florida (often casually called Brightline East) is a completed high-speed intercity passenger rail currently connecting Miami and Orlando, with connections in between. The underwriting question for its senior bonds is fundamentally an operating one: can ridership, pricing power, and cost con...