Amidst the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and the severe disruptions to the global energy supply chain, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen will personally lead a delegation on an emergency diplomatic visit to Saudi Arabia next week, aiming to secure and lock in a long-term stable supply of liquid fuels and crude oil for Australia.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) flagship political talk show “7.30” on Monday evening, Bowen revealed that thanks to the government’s “minimum inventory obligation” policy implemented in recent years, Australia currently has approximately 41 days’ worth of domestic and en route petrol reserves. While this figure is higher than the historical average of recent years and sufficient to meet short-term domestic consumption demand, Bowen emphasized that the risks in the global energy market have not been eliminated.

He expressed “extreme concern” about the current squeezed crude oil supply in the Middle East, citing the military conflict in Iran and surrounding geopolitical tensions as disrupting shipping in key waterways such as the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, leading to sharp fluctuations in international oil prices and strain on the refining supply chain.

Despite the Australian government’s call for public rationality, the rise in international crude oil prices has already impacted Australian retail petrol stations. Bowen concluded by emphasizing that the global situation remains highly volatile, and that “obtaining the most accurate intelligence and engaging in proactive diplomatic maneuvering are key to ensuring Australia’s fuel security and economic stability in the coming months.”

Canada offered support on Thursday to boost Ukraine’s air defenses and help replenish its drone stocks, as the countries pledged to deepen their alliance during a visit by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Canada PM Carney hosted the president of Ukraine in Calgary in the western province of Alberta, where the Canadian prime minister grew up among a large community of people with Ukrainian heritage. That deal, to be negotiated over the coming months, aims to codify cooperation in a range of areas, including defense, critical minerals and energy.

Carney said Canada was also offering C$450m in loan guarantees to enhance the Ukrainian energy supply, which will help repair damaged infrastructure, increase storage capacity and improve power supply to hospitals.

Zelenskyy told reporters that the drones will be helpful for Ukraine to survive the war. Asked about potential negotiations to ease the fighting, Zelenskyy said he did not anticipate any substantive talks during Russia’s ongoing election period, but has planned to meet Trump in New York City in late September, probably on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, with Washington bidding to revive long-stalled talks to end the war.

Sam Altman and Elon Musk have backed a call from the head of Anthropic, Dario Amodei, to “slow the pace” of AI development after he warned that an AI swarm could otherwise become capable of “taking over the entire internet” within a year.

Amodei said “building [AI] too fast is reckless” and he feared that after hundreds of OpenAI agents hacked into the Hugging Face website this summer, a swarm with greater capabilities but similarly misaligned could cause hundreds of billions of dollars of damage by “taking over the entire internet with a persistent botnet”. This was disputed by some AI experts as not particularly plausible and to be treated with scepticism.

Amodei’s call comes as Anthropic prepares to float on the US stock market, in what is expected to be the biggest initial public offering of all time. It is expected to start marketing its planned $2tn-plus (£1.5tn) IPO soon. US president Trump played down the warnings and said “very negative forces” were “bringing up things that won’t happen”. But some safety experts questioned whether Amodei’s plan went far enough. David Krueger, an AI professor, safety campaigner and former founding director of the UK government’s AI Security Institute, even said: “We need an immediate, indefinite, international moratorium on frontier AI development.”