Discussions of a possible re-merger were revealed during the last few weeks in unsealed court documents and an attorney’s testimony related to a family succession saga that began in 2023

International News via Reuters:

Rupert Murdoch’s longstanding wish to reunite his Fox Corp and News Corp could happen in a potential merger that would unite a TV company with a widespread news operation, cementing the family’s control over a smaller empire, court documents and video show.

Discussions of a possible re-merger were revealed during the last few weeks in unsealed court documents and an attorney’s testimony related to a family succession saga that began in 2023. The judicial official overseeing the matter released the findings at the end of July.

They showed that in 2022, Rupert Murdoch, then chairman of Fox Corp and News Corp, became interested in recombining the two companies after he split them less than 10 years earlier.

Murdoch drafted a letter to both boards stating the family trust would not “vote in favor of any alternative sale, merger or similar transaction involving either company.” After a representative for Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth questioned the re-merger, Rupert texted her and threatened to “ram it through … if necessary.” 

The merger failed after investors balked, but court proceedings in June show Murdoch could make a renewed attempt. In a hearing to determine whether the court testimony should be made public, an attorney for Lachlan Murdoch argued any discussions related to the merger should be sealed or redacted because it’s “something that still could happen in the future.”

Fox Corp and News Corp declined to comment. Shares in Fox dropped as much as 2.9% while News Corp rose 1.5% following the Reuters report. 

A merger would bring together what remains of Murdoch’s waning media empire. It would unite an array of disparate businesses across television, newspapers and streaming, including Fox News, Fox broadcast, which airs NFL games, the Wall Street Journal, the Sun, and the New York Post. 

Fox, led by Lachlan Murdoch, struck a $22 billion deal in June to acquire the streaming platform Roku, giving Fox access to more than 100 million households in an attempt to reach more digital audiences as television declines. 

Murdoch split his empire in two after a hacking scandal at his UK newspapers in 2013 threatened his enterprise. Murdoch and his son James Murdoch apologized to a UK parliamentary committee after it was revealed one of his tabloids had hacked the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler. Murdoch cleaved the faster-growing and more lucrative television business from his shrinking newspaper empire, and investors boosted the value of both.

The court findings were released after several news organizations, including Reuters, petitioned the probate commissioner presiding over the case to release the proceedings.

The fractious family dispute started in December 2023, when the then 93-year-old media titan moved to alter the family trust to give effective control of Fox and News Corp to his eldest son Lachlan, cutting out three of his children, Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth, and James.

The children took their father to court but settled last year after a two-year battle. Lachlan became the heir to his father’s business while the three children were paid $1.1 billion each in a deal that dissolved their stakes in the family trust that controls Murdoch’s companies.

Details from the succession drama were first revealed by the New York Times Magazine last year, but the July findings from the Nevada court relayed fresh comments from the elder Murdoch.

When a family representative questioned his motivation to further consolidate his control over the businesses, Rupert Murdoch responded: “Sorry, Richard! This has been a family-dominated business for 70 years,” and added, “It would be a disaster for at least the U.S. and Australia if these assets fell into the wrong hands.”

Reporting by Edmund Lee; Editing by Rod Nickel

Authorities in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys, while emergency services recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains

International News via Reuters:

Rescuers searched Himalayan valleys and hillsides on Thursday after a flash flood that killed at least 359 people and left nearly 1,000 missing, as Nepal and China warned of a risk of fresh flooding from water pooling in two lakes.

Both countries said a glacier collapse on Wednesday morning sent a huge torrent of rock, ice, mud and debris cascading through Himalayan mountain river systems, sweeping through villages and key infrastructure down a route thronged by trekkers and pilgrims that links Kathmandu with Lhasa in Tibet. Of those missing, at least 540 are foreigners.

Authorities in Nepal used helicopters to search for survivors and drop emergency supplies to thousands cut off in towns and valleys, while emergency services recovered dozens of bodies swept down into the plains.

The sheer amount of water and debris stirred up now risks triggering a further disaster.

Nepal’s disaster management authority warned that a lake formed by debris blocking the Bhotekoshi River at the flood site was rising and at risk of bursting, while on the other side of the border China said that some 3 million cubic metres of water — the equivalent of about 1,200 Olympic-sized swimming pools — was expected to flow into an already dammed lake over the next three days.

There is a high risk the lake could breach, with peak flow expected around September 1, Chinese state media said, citing the water resources ministry.

“The volume of water is continuing to increase, and so is the risk,” Zhu Jinfeng, a researcher at the ministry’s hydrology department, told state broadcaster CCTV.

TORRENT TORE THROUGH BORDER CROSSING

Chinese rescuers had yet to reach the worst-hit area on the Chinese side of the border, the Gyirong border crossing, by Thursday evening, state-media reports indicated, as crews worked to clear debris from the key access road leading to the area.

The Gyirong border port has a key role in China’s Belt and Road network linking the country to South Asia, with logistics zones and parking lots built there in the past decade.

Dramatic footage on Wednesday showed enormous torrents of muddy water and debris tearing through structures in the border crossing area within seconds and engulfing people trying to flee.

All the buildings in the border-crossing complex, including the border gate, a stately building bearing China’s national emblem and housing customs and immigration agencies, were destroyed by the mudslide, footage filmed from a military helicopter surveying the area and broadcast on state television showed.

The entire compound was reduced to an unrecognisable mass of destruction, caked in thick, muddy debris and almost devoid of any sign of civilization, the footage showed.

The tally of missing in Tibet’s Gyirong County was 558, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday, including 260 foreign nationals. China said the death toll stayed at three.

China’s Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official, arrived at the disaster-stricken site in Gyirong on Thursday afternoon, state-run Xinhua news agency said. The visit suggested Beijing was treating the disaster as a matter of the highest national priority.

‘EXPLODED LIKE A BOMB’

In Nepal, the Red Cross said that entire villages had been destroyed and impassable roads and bridges had left communities cut off. The full scale of the disaster remains unclear, it added.

Nepal’s Home Minister Sudhan Gurung said the focus remained on finding survivors. Rescue teams located 100 missing Indian visitors, mostly pilgrims, and 25 Chinese workers in the worst-hit region around Trishuli.

The flood “came in suddenly and exploded like a bomb,” said survivor Janak Bahadur in Nepal’s Devighat on Thursday. “The river looked small from a distance but it suddenly started overflowing and swept through.”

The missing foreigners in Nepal belonged to more than two dozen countries, including 288 from India, 63 from the United States, 51 from Malaysia, 34 from Australia, 33 from Britain and 25 from Canada.

Ganesh Aryal, the administrator of Chitwan district, said authorities had recovered 103 bodies from the river system in his district, which is about 100 km (62 miles) away in the plains from the worst-hit region of Trishuli.

With local hospitals unable to accommodate all the bodies, district authorities were setting up tents and making arrangements for families to claim their dead relatives, he said.

Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah left by road to assess the flood situation in one of the worst-affected districts of Nuwakot, his office said on social media.

The disaster is a major challenge for Shah’s five-month-old government but officials said the country had systems and officials who have experience in handling such tragedies, including the 2015 earthquake that killed nearly 9,000 people.

CLIMATE CHANGE COULD BE A FACTOR

Chinese government geologist Guo Zhaocheng said the ice-avalanche debris flow that caused the mudslide moved at about 50 metres (165 feet) per second, leaving people little time to react, and extended for more than 20 km (12 miles).

Guo said a high-altitude ice avalanche triggered the debris flow, which picked up glacial moraine as it moved down a channel before becoming a mudslide that struck port facilities and areas on both sides of the China-Nepal border.

Early reports had suggested an earthquake in the area could have triggered the glacier’s collapse.

But the U.S. Geological Survey said an earthquake with magnitude initially reported as 4.4 was in fact seismic energy generated by the collapse of glacial rock and ice, followed by debris flow.

Scientists cautioned against describing climate change as the sole and immediate trigger for the glacier collapse, but said rising temperatures and melting ice probably played a role.

“Climate change is generating conditions that can destabilise high-mountain rock and ice,” said Simon Cox, chief scientist at the Mountains to Sea programme at Earth Sciences New Zealand.

Warming can reduce the support provided by ice, increase meltwater and alter patterns of freezing, thawing and rainfall, making large collapses more likely in some places, Cox said.

DISASTER HIT HINDU PILGRIMS

Many of this week’s victims were pilgrims headed to Kailash Mansarovar, a high-altitude site in Tibet revered by Hindus and Buddhists, among others.

Mount Kailash, which Hindus believe to be the home of Lord Shiva and which lies on the banks of Lake Mansarovar, is also held sacred by many.

“There are no human-made things, no human settlement left. Everything is just flat,” Sagar Pandey, the chief executive of a Himalayan tourism operator, told Reuters after flying over the zone in a helicopter. “So anyone in the hotel, the restaurant, or the car, I believe that everybody is gone.”

Around the world, relatives of those missing were desperate for information about their whereabouts.

Vasanthi Muniandy, whose sister Vennila was part of a Hindu pilgrimage group from Malaysia, said she had last heard from her after Vennila had crossed into Tibet from Nepal.

“I am totally broken. My sister is very important to me,” said Vasanthi. “I really want her to come back. I don’t have anyone but her. I just want her to come back home. I want her to be safe.”

Reporting by Gopal Sharma, Sahana Bajracharya, Aftab Ahmed, Saurabh Sharma, Liz Lee, Yukun Zhang, Xiuhao Chen, Shi Bu, Sakshi Dayal, Kanjyik Ghosh, Shilpa Jamkhandikar, Hritam Mukherjee, Ashley Tang and Christine Chen; Writing by Lincoln Feast, YP Rajesh and Michele Kambas; Editing by Saad Sayeed, Hugh Lawson and Rosalba O’Brien

Premier Christine Frechette, who leads the right-of-center Coalition Avenir Quebec government, made the announcement on Thursday at a press conference to begin her campaign for re-election

International News via Reuters:

Quebec will hold an election on October 5, with polls showing that the next government is likely to be formed by separatists who want independence for the predominantly French-speaking Canadian province — but not while U.S. President Donald Trump is in office.

Premier Christine Frechette, who leads the right-of-center Coalition Avenir Quebec government, made the announcement on Thursday at a press conference to begin her campaign for re-election. Under Quebec’s fixed-date election law, October 5 is the latest day a province-wide vote can be held.

The CAQ first came to power in 2018 and won reelection in 2022 but is trailing the separatist Parti Quebecois amid voter fatigue and anger over high living costs and a struggling medical system.

The PQ, set to take power for the first time in more than a decade, have long promised to hold another referendum on splitting from Canada.

But last week, PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said that if he won power, the party would not call a referendum until Trump leaves office, in 2029. Quebec has been one of the hardest-hit provinces amid the deepening trade war with the U.S. and Trump is more disliked there than elsewhere in Canada.  

Two previous independence votes, in 1980 and 1995, both failed and a series of polls over the last two years show a solid majority are against the idea of breaking away from Canada.

Reporting by David Ljunggren and Maria Cheng; Editing by Mark Porter

Brent crude futures climbed $1.08, or 1.23%, to $88.92 a barrel at 11:35 a.m. ET (1535 GMT)

International News via Reuters:

Oil prices rose by more than $1 on Thursday, after Washington confirmed it was not in talks with Iran despite diplomatic efforts by other countries, and hopes dimmed for a resumption of oil flows through the Middle East.

Brent crude futures climbed $1.08, or 1.23%, to $88.92 a barrel at 11:35 a.m. ET (1535 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained 19 cents, or 0.23%, to $82.42. 

“The weakness in WTI reflects an increasingly comfortable U.S. crude balance,” said Irina Tsukerman, president at geopolitical risk consultancy Scarab Rising. 

On Wednesday, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported a build in U.S. crude inventories, including a rise in stocks at the Cushing, Oklahoma, delivery hub.

Still, prices for Brent and WTI rebounded after three sessions of losses as investors reassessed expectations of a diplomatic breakthrough that could boost oil flows from the Middle East. A lack of progress in talks, combined with continually restricted flows, could have prompted an adjustment of market views, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said. 

 The White House said no negotiations are happening between the U.S. and Iran, but all options remain on the table. 

“No negotiations are happening right now, and this will continue until the president feels that maybe they come to the table in a meaningful way. We have not seen that yet,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview with Fox News.

Qatar’s prime minister visited Tehran in a bid to relaunch diplomatic talks to end the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, on the eve of its six-month anniversary. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz route for Gulf energy exports remains restricted.

The U.S. and Iran traded recriminations over Washington’s promise to increase economic pressure on Iran.

On Monday, the U.S. announced the “toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, taking economic measures that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested would lessen the need for new major military operations.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security committee, said the sanctions were an “inhumane and hostile act” which nonetheless had lost their effectiveness.

“The biggest risk right now is that optimism around a deal proves premature and negotiations stall or break down again. That would quickly re-inject risk premium into prices,” KCM chief market analyst Tim Waterer said.

“At the heart of the dispute remains Iran’s nuclear programme and that is unlikely to be resolved quickly … Iran also understands the importance of its geographical position and the leverage that the Strait of Hormuz provides, so the risk of prolonged uncertainty remains,” said Priyanka Sachdeva, head of market insights at Phillip Nova.

The Strait of Hormuz handled about one-fifth of global daily oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before the conflict began in late February. 

Flows through the strait improved slightly on Wednesday, with 10 commodity vessels transiting the waterway, up from recent lows but still below the 10-day average of 15, according to Kpler data. Vessels exiting the strait included a medium-range fuel tanker, a bitumen tanker and a bulk carrier.

Elsewhere, geopolitical tensions escalated after Russia warned it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory using British-supplied long-range cruise missiles.

Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in New York, Robert harvey in London, Laila Kearney in New York, Emily Chow in Singapore and Anushree Mukherjee in Bengaluru. Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus, Conor Humphries, Mark Potter, Louise Heavens and David Gregorio