Israel orders Gaza evacuations as Trump urges war's end
The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza, before intensifying fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump calls for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.
"Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel's offensive.
A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
"The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations," the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army's bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
The escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group's outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war.
Israel says it can only end it if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza, before intensifying fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump calls for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.
"Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel's offensive.
A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
"The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations," the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army's bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
The escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group's outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war.
Israel says it can only end it if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza, before intensifying fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump calls for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.
"Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel's offensive.
A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
"The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations," the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army's bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
The escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group's outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war.
Israel says it can only end it if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
The Israeli military has ordered Palestinians to evacuate areas in northern Gaza, before intensifying fighting against Hamas, as US President Donald Trump calls for an end to the war amid renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire.
"Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back," Trump posted on his Truth Social platform early on Sunday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was due to hold talks later in the day on the progress of Israel's offensive.
A senior security official said the military will tell him the campaign is close to reaching its objectives, and warn that expanding fighting to new areas in Gaza may endanger the remaining Israeli hostages.
But in a statement posted on X and text messages sent to many residents, the military urged people in northern parts of the enclave to head south towards the Al-Mawasi area in Khan Younis, which Israel designated as a humanitarian area. Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere in Gaza is safe.
"The (Israeli) Defense Forces is operating with extreme force in these areas, and these military operations will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city center to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organizations," the military said.
The evacuation order covered the Jabalia area and most Gaza City districts. Medics and residents said the Israeli army's bombardments escalated in the early hours in Jabalia, destroying several houses and killing at least six people.
In Khan Younis in the south, five people were killed in an airstrike on a tent encampment near Mawasi, medics said.
The escalation comes as Arab mediators, Egypt and Qatar, backed by the United States, begin a new ceasefire effort to halt the 20-month-old conflict and secure the release of Israeli and foreign hostages still being held by Hamas.
Interest in resolving the Gaza conflict has heightened following US and Israeli bombings of Iran's nuclear facilities.
A Hamas official told Reuters the group had informed the mediators it was ready to resume ceasefire talks, but reaffirmed the group's outstanding demands that any deal must end the war and secure an Israeli withdrawal from the coastal territory.
Hamas has said it is willing to free remaining hostages in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, only in a deal that will end the war.
Israel says it can only end it if Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the entire 2.3 million population, plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins.
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Time to obliterate the off ramp for language's sake
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Truth might be the first casualty in war but language falls soon after. For 12 long days we were assailed with an unfamiliar and ugly term, which spread faster than COVID's Omicron strain. As the world held its breath over the Israel-Iran missile exchange, "diplomatic off-ramp" became the jargon du jour. It was trotted out by experts and repeated ad nauseam by journalists. For some reason, it made my teeth hurt every time I heard it. What was wrong with, say, "peaceful compromise", "diplomatic solution" or "exit strategy"? In the language of diplomacy, off-ramp means finding a way out without losing face. "Obliterated" grabbed all the attention after the US dropped its big bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. When I first heard it uttered by Donald Trump, like many others I thought, "Hang on. How do you know?" Curious, I poked my nose into the dictionary to see what the word actually meant. "To remove all signs of something, either by destroying or covering it completely," the Oxford Dictionary told me. Fordo was out of sight before it was bombed. What it looks like after the strike is anyone's guess. Yet here we were, days later, arguing the toss over President Trump's hyperbolic language. Weekend Fox News anchor turned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth didn't help matters when defending Trump's imprecise language by saying the facility at Fordo has been "decimated". That suggests its capacity had been reduced by 10 per cent, a far cry from "obliterated". Confusion in the hunt for a linguistic off-ramp for the President. Of course, this isn't the first war in which language has suffered. During the Vietnam War, the term "collateral damage" came into military usage, deployed as a sanitised euphemism for "civilian casualties". "Collateral damage" became a popular buzzword during the 1991 Gulf War. And in 1999, it earned the dubious distinction of being named the German Un Word of the Year after it was used by NATO forces to describe civilian casualties in the Kosovo war. And we shouldn't forget "extraordinary rendition", which entered the language after September 11. In a sane world it would mean a memorable performance of, say, a piano concerto. Somehow it became code for plucking terrorism suspects off foreign streets and flying them to black sites where the use of "enhanced interrogation" (torture) wasn't illegal. There's a host of war-related crimes against the language. "Ethnic cleansing" - in vogue during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s - seeks to sanitise genocide. "Pacification", which in military terms means eliminating an enemy. "Strategic withdrawal", a polite way of saying retreat. "Peace with honour" - Richard Nixon's favourite, which really means defeat with the dishonourable distinction of abandoning your erstwhile ally. The argument of whether or not Iran's nuclear ambitions were derailed is unlikely to last long. That's because it's only a matter of time before Donald Trump deploys another weapon of crass distraction, most likely in the dead of night from his Truth Social platform. Meanwhile, can we please obliterate the off-ramp? HAVE YOUR SAY: What are the buzz phrases and euphemisms which annoy you the most? Does military and diplomatic jargon hide ugly truths that ought to be out in the open? Are you irritated by the misuse of the word "decimated"? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The head of a man allegedly murdered and dismembered by his reality TV contestant partner is missing and police are calling on the public to help give his family "a peaceful outcome". - The online far-right extremist network Terrorgram has been listed as a terrorist organisation, with members facing decades in jail if convicted of an offence. - Carn, spew, and goon are some of the colloquialisms added to the Australian edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. THEY SAID IT: "Euphemism is a euphemism for lying." - Bobbie Gentry YOU SAID IT: Garry wants companies to sign up to his user agreement, rather than the other way around. "Having spent close to 50 minutes waiting to see my doctor recently, I was presented with the account for payment on departure," writes Brian. "Not having been amused with the wait, I suggested that my hourly rate at the time was about equal to the presented bill, so how about we call it quits and I get to see the doctor for nothing. Needless to say, I was kindly reminded that I needed to pay for my consultation." Deb writes: "Last year, after being on hold for two hours and 40 minutes trying to report an internet outage to Telstra, I decided to cancel my account. Although the recorded options list did not have a 'cancel' option, some helpful Google advice suggested just saying 'cancel' anyway, and it worked! I was put through to a human within 10 minutes. Funny how companies suddenly improve customer service when there's a threat of losing business." "Wonderful words once again," writes Sue. "Except you have made one mistake: you are not 'The User'. You are 'The Used'." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Truth might be the first casualty in war but language falls soon after. For 12 long days we were assailed with an unfamiliar and ugly term, which spread faster than COVID's Omicron strain. As the world held its breath over the Israel-Iran missile exchange, "diplomatic off-ramp" became the jargon du jour. It was trotted out by experts and repeated ad nauseam by journalists. For some reason, it made my teeth hurt every time I heard it. What was wrong with, say, "peaceful compromise", "diplomatic solution" or "exit strategy"? In the language of diplomacy, off-ramp means finding a way out without losing face. "Obliterated" grabbed all the attention after the US dropped its big bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. When I first heard it uttered by Donald Trump, like many others I thought, "Hang on. How do you know?" Curious, I poked my nose into the dictionary to see what the word actually meant. "To remove all signs of something, either by destroying or covering it completely," the Oxford Dictionary told me. Fordo was out of sight before it was bombed. What it looks like after the strike is anyone's guess. Yet here we were, days later, arguing the toss over President Trump's hyperbolic language. Weekend Fox News anchor turned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth didn't help matters when defending Trump's imprecise language by saying the facility at Fordo has been "decimated". That suggests its capacity had been reduced by 10 per cent, a far cry from "obliterated". Confusion in the hunt for a linguistic off-ramp for the President. Of course, this isn't the first war in which language has suffered. During the Vietnam War, the term "collateral damage" came into military usage, deployed as a sanitised euphemism for "civilian casualties". "Collateral damage" became a popular buzzword during the 1991 Gulf War. And in 1999, it earned the dubious distinction of being named the German Un Word of the Year after it was used by NATO forces to describe civilian casualties in the Kosovo war. And we shouldn't forget "extraordinary rendition", which entered the language after September 11. In a sane world it would mean a memorable performance of, say, a piano concerto. Somehow it became code for plucking terrorism suspects off foreign streets and flying them to black sites where the use of "enhanced interrogation" (torture) wasn't illegal. There's a host of war-related crimes against the language. "Ethnic cleansing" - in vogue during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s - seeks to sanitise genocide. "Pacification", which in military terms means eliminating an enemy. "Strategic withdrawal", a polite way of saying retreat. "Peace with honour" - Richard Nixon's favourite, which really means defeat with the dishonourable distinction of abandoning your erstwhile ally. The argument of whether or not Iran's nuclear ambitions were derailed is unlikely to last long. That's because it's only a matter of time before Donald Trump deploys another weapon of crass distraction, most likely in the dead of night from his Truth Social platform. Meanwhile, can we please obliterate the off-ramp? HAVE YOUR SAY: What are the buzz phrases and euphemisms which annoy you the most? Does military and diplomatic jargon hide ugly truths that ought to be out in the open? Are you irritated by the misuse of the word "decimated"? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The head of a man allegedly murdered and dismembered by his reality TV contestant partner is missing and police are calling on the public to help give his family "a peaceful outcome". - The online far-right extremist network Terrorgram has been listed as a terrorist organisation, with members facing decades in jail if convicted of an offence. - Carn, spew, and goon are some of the colloquialisms added to the Australian edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. THEY SAID IT: "Euphemism is a euphemism for lying." - Bobbie Gentry YOU SAID IT: Garry wants companies to sign up to his user agreement, rather than the other way around. "Having spent close to 50 minutes waiting to see my doctor recently, I was presented with the account for payment on departure," writes Brian. "Not having been amused with the wait, I suggested that my hourly rate at the time was about equal to the presented bill, so how about we call it quits and I get to see the doctor for nothing. Needless to say, I was kindly reminded that I needed to pay for my consultation." Deb writes: "Last year, after being on hold for two hours and 40 minutes trying to report an internet outage to Telstra, I decided to cancel my account. Although the recorded options list did not have a 'cancel' option, some helpful Google advice suggested just saying 'cancel' anyway, and it worked! I was put through to a human within 10 minutes. Funny how companies suddenly improve customer service when there's a threat of losing business." "Wonderful words once again," writes Sue. "Except you have made one mistake: you are not 'The User'. You are 'The Used'." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Truth might be the first casualty in war but language falls soon after. For 12 long days we were assailed with an unfamiliar and ugly term, which spread faster than COVID's Omicron strain. As the world held its breath over the Israel-Iran missile exchange, "diplomatic off-ramp" became the jargon du jour. It was trotted out by experts and repeated ad nauseam by journalists. For some reason, it made my teeth hurt every time I heard it. What was wrong with, say, "peaceful compromise", "diplomatic solution" or "exit strategy"? In the language of diplomacy, off-ramp means finding a way out without losing face. "Obliterated" grabbed all the attention after the US dropped its big bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. When I first heard it uttered by Donald Trump, like many others I thought, "Hang on. How do you know?" Curious, I poked my nose into the dictionary to see what the word actually meant. "To remove all signs of something, either by destroying or covering it completely," the Oxford Dictionary told me. Fordo was out of sight before it was bombed. What it looks like after the strike is anyone's guess. Yet here we were, days later, arguing the toss over President Trump's hyperbolic language. Weekend Fox News anchor turned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth didn't help matters when defending Trump's imprecise language by saying the facility at Fordo has been "decimated". That suggests its capacity had been reduced by 10 per cent, a far cry from "obliterated". Confusion in the hunt for a linguistic off-ramp for the President. Of course, this isn't the first war in which language has suffered. During the Vietnam War, the term "collateral damage" came into military usage, deployed as a sanitised euphemism for "civilian casualties". "Collateral damage" became a popular buzzword during the 1991 Gulf War. And in 1999, it earned the dubious distinction of being named the German Un Word of the Year after it was used by NATO forces to describe civilian casualties in the Kosovo war. And we shouldn't forget "extraordinary rendition", which entered the language after September 11. In a sane world it would mean a memorable performance of, say, a piano concerto. Somehow it became code for plucking terrorism suspects off foreign streets and flying them to black sites where the use of "enhanced interrogation" (torture) wasn't illegal. There's a host of war-related crimes against the language. "Ethnic cleansing" - in vogue during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s - seeks to sanitise genocide. "Pacification", which in military terms means eliminating an enemy. "Strategic withdrawal", a polite way of saying retreat. "Peace with honour" - Richard Nixon's favourite, which really means defeat with the dishonourable distinction of abandoning your erstwhile ally. The argument of whether or not Iran's nuclear ambitions were derailed is unlikely to last long. That's because it's only a matter of time before Donald Trump deploys another weapon of crass distraction, most likely in the dead of night from his Truth Social platform. Meanwhile, can we please obliterate the off-ramp? HAVE YOUR SAY: What are the buzz phrases and euphemisms which annoy you the most? Does military and diplomatic jargon hide ugly truths that ought to be out in the open? Are you irritated by the misuse of the word "decimated"? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The head of a man allegedly murdered and dismembered by his reality TV contestant partner is missing and police are calling on the public to help give his family "a peaceful outcome". - The online far-right extremist network Terrorgram has been listed as a terrorist organisation, with members facing decades in jail if convicted of an offence. - Carn, spew, and goon are some of the colloquialisms added to the Australian edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. THEY SAID IT: "Euphemism is a euphemism for lying." - Bobbie Gentry YOU SAID IT: Garry wants companies to sign up to his user agreement, rather than the other way around. "Having spent close to 50 minutes waiting to see my doctor recently, I was presented with the account for payment on departure," writes Brian. "Not having been amused with the wait, I suggested that my hourly rate at the time was about equal to the presented bill, so how about we call it quits and I get to see the doctor for nothing. Needless to say, I was kindly reminded that I needed to pay for my consultation." Deb writes: "Last year, after being on hold for two hours and 40 minutes trying to report an internet outage to Telstra, I decided to cancel my account. Although the recorded options list did not have a 'cancel' option, some helpful Google advice suggested just saying 'cancel' anyway, and it worked! I was put through to a human within 10 minutes. Funny how companies suddenly improve customer service when there's a threat of losing business." "Wonderful words once again," writes Sue. "Except you have made one mistake: you are not 'The User'. You are 'The Used'." This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Truth might be the first casualty in war but language falls soon after. For 12 long days we were assailed with an unfamiliar and ugly term, which spread faster than COVID's Omicron strain. As the world held its breath over the Israel-Iran missile exchange, "diplomatic off-ramp" became the jargon du jour. It was trotted out by experts and repeated ad nauseam by journalists. For some reason, it made my teeth hurt every time I heard it. What was wrong with, say, "peaceful compromise", "diplomatic solution" or "exit strategy"? In the language of diplomacy, off-ramp means finding a way out without losing face. "Obliterated" grabbed all the attention after the US dropped its big bombs on Iran's nuclear facilities. When I first heard it uttered by Donald Trump, like many others I thought, "Hang on. How do you know?" Curious, I poked my nose into the dictionary to see what the word actually meant. "To remove all signs of something, either by destroying or covering it completely," the Oxford Dictionary told me. Fordo was out of sight before it was bombed. What it looks like after the strike is anyone's guess. Yet here we were, days later, arguing the toss over President Trump's hyperbolic language. Weekend Fox News anchor turned Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth didn't help matters when defending Trump's imprecise language by saying the facility at Fordo has been "decimated". That suggests its capacity had been reduced by 10 per cent, a far cry from "obliterated". Confusion in the hunt for a linguistic off-ramp for the President. Of course, this isn't the first war in which language has suffered. During the Vietnam War, the term "collateral damage" came into military usage, deployed as a sanitised euphemism for "civilian casualties". "Collateral damage" became a popular buzzword during the 1991 Gulf War. And in 1999, it earned the dubious distinction of being named the German Un Word of the Year after it was used by NATO forces to describe civilian casualties in the Kosovo war. And we shouldn't forget "extraordinary rendition", which entered the language after September 11. In a sane world it would mean a memorable performance of, say, a piano concerto. Somehow it became code for plucking terrorism suspects off foreign streets and flying them to black sites where the use of "enhanced interrogation" (torture) wasn't illegal. There's a host of war-related crimes against the language. "Ethnic cleansing" - in vogue during the Balkans conflict of the 1990s - seeks to sanitise genocide. "Pacification", which in military terms means eliminating an enemy. "Strategic withdrawal", a polite way of saying retreat. "Peace with honour" - Richard Nixon's favourite, which really means defeat with the dishonourable distinction of abandoning your erstwhile ally. The argument of whether or not Iran's nuclear ambitions were derailed is unlikely to last long. That's because it's only a matter of time before Donald Trump deploys another weapon of crass distraction, most likely in the dead of night from his Truth Social platform. Meanwhile, can we please obliterate the off-ramp? HAVE YOUR SAY: What are the buzz phrases and euphemisms which annoy you the most? Does military and diplomatic jargon hide ugly truths that ought to be out in the open? Are you irritated by the misuse of the word "decimated"? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The head of a man allegedly murdered and dismembered by his reality TV contestant partner is missing and police are calling on the public to help give his family "a peaceful outcome". - The online far-right extremist network Terrorgram has been listed as a terrorist organisation, with members facing decades in jail if convicted of an offence. - Carn, spew, and goon are some of the colloquialisms added to the Australian edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. THEY SAID IT: "Euphemism is a euphemism for lying." - Bobbie Gentry YOU SAID IT: Garry wants companies to sign up to his user agreement, rather than the other way around. "Having spent close to 50 minutes waiting to see my doctor recently, I was presented with the account for payment on departure," writes Brian. "Not having been amused with the wait, I suggested that my hourly rate at the time was about equal to the presented bill, so how about we call it quits and I get to see the doctor for nothing. Needless to say, I was kindly reminded that I needed to pay for my consultation." Deb writes: "Last year, after being on hold for two hours and 40 minutes trying to report an internet outage to Telstra, I decided to cancel my account. Although the recorded options list did not have a 'cancel' option, some helpful Google advice suggested just saying 'cancel' anyway, and it worked! I was put through to a human within 10 minutes. Funny how companies suddenly improve customer service when there's a threat of losing business." "Wonderful words once again," writes Sue. "Except you have made one mistake: you are not 'The User'. You are 'The Used'."
Perth Now
an hour ago
- Perth Now
Canada trade talks with US resume
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says trade talks with US have resumed after Canada rescinded its plan to tax US technology firms. US President Donald Trump abruptly cut off trade talks with Canada on Friday over its tax targeting US technology firms, saying that it was a "blatant attack" and that he would set a new tariff rate on Canadian goods within the next week. The tax was three per cent of the digital services revenue a firm takes in from Canadian users above $US20 million ($A31 million) in a calendar year, and payments will be retroactive to 2022. Carney's office said Carney and Trump have agreed to resume negotiations. "Today's announcement will support a resumption of negotiations toward the July 21, 2025, timeline set out at this month's G7 Leaders' Summit in Kananaskis," Carney said in a statement. Carney visited Trump in May at the White House, where he was polite but firm. Trump travelled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta, where Carney said that Canada and the US had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks. Canada is the second-largest US trading partner after Mexico and the largest buyer of US exports. It bought $US349.4 billion ($A534.7 billion) of US goods last year and exported $US412.7 billion ($A631.6 billion) to the US, according to US Census Bureau data. The Canadian government says "in anticipation" of a trade deal "Canada would rescind" the Digital Serves Tax. Trump, in a post on his social media network last Friday, said Canada had just informed the US that it was sticking to its plan to impose the digital services tax, which applies to Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada. The tax was set to go into effect on Monday. The digital services tax was due to hit companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a three per cent levy on revenue from Canadian users. It would have applied retroactively, leaving US companies with a $US2 billion ($A3.1 billion) US bill due at the end of the month. Trump's announcement on Friday was the latest swerve in the trade war he's launched since taking office for a second term in January. Progress with Canada has been a roller coaster, starting with the US president poking at the nation's northern neighbour and repeatedly suggesting it would be absorbed as a US state. with reuters
