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India Gazette
13 minutes ago
- India Gazette
India all-rounder Deepti Sharma pulls out of Women's Hundred to manage workload
New Delhi [India], July 8 (ANI): India all-rounder Deepti Sharma, who helped London Spirit lift their maiden Hundred title by dispatching the ball for a maximum on the final ball, has pulled out of the 2025 season to manage her workload, according to ESPNcricinfo. Deepti is currently touring England with the Indian team. She has had a jam-packed schedule, balancing her international and franchise league commitments. With the ODI World Cup on home turf looming later this year, Deepti decided to withdraw from her Pound 36,000 contract to give herself a short break, according to ESPNcricinfo. Australia all-rounder Charlie Knott has replaced Deepti in the Spirit's squad, which looks significantly different from last year. Charlie Dean will take over the captaincy duties for the injured Heather Knight. Grace Harris has replaced Meg Lanning, while Chris Liddle has taken over the head coach role from Ashley Noffke. Deepti's withdrawal means there will be no Indian players in the Hundred this year. Meanwhile, the Trent Rockets confirmed that Australian all-rounder Ash Gardner will captain the side this season. Last month, ESPNcricinfo reported that Nat Sciver-Brunt had stepped down from captaincy to manage her workload after taking the England skipper role. In the Hundred, David Willey will take over the Rockets captaincy from Lewis Gregory, who was released and later signed by Manchester Originals. Willey spent the last two years playing for Welsh Fire. Last week, the Southern Brave roped in former England opener Marcus Trescothick as their men's team batting coach. Trescothick currently serves as the batting coach for the England men's team and stepped in as interim coach during their white-ball series last July. This marks his first coaching assignment in The Hundred. Luke Williams has been appointed as the new head coach of Southern Brave's women's side for The Hundred 2025, taking over from Charlotte Edwards, who recently stepped up as head coach of the England Women's team. (ANI)
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘Serious animal welfare concerns': Australian authorities investigate alleged breach of livestock export rules
Australian authorities are investigating claims that sheep exported to the Middle East have been mistreated at a local abattoir – the sixth investigation involving sheep shipped by Perth-based exporter Livestock Shipping services in seven years. The investigation relates to allegations sheep at the Hijazi & Ghosheh slaughterhouse near Amman in Jordan, which is approved and inspected under Australia's export supply chain assurance system (Escas), were killed in a way which breached those guidelines. It is the second time the slaughterhouse has been reported for alleged breach of Escas rules in two years. The allegations come as Dr Katherine Clift, the Australian inspector-general of animal welfare and live animal exports, is due to release two reports into how the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry handles livestock exports and responds to major incidents. The Albanese government last year legislated to phase out the live export of sheep by sea by 2028. Covert vision captured by Animals Australia during Eid al-Adha in June, and seen by Guardian Australia, shows sheep with their throats cut, kicking and gasping as they are tossed alive to the abattoir floor. Sign up to receive Guardian Australia's fortnightly Rural Network email newsletter 'The vision provides clear evidence that the sheep are conscious and experiencing pain as their open neck wounds strike a raised metal bar while being dragged along the slaughter table,' Animals Australia lawyer Shatha Hamade said. Hamade said the footage 'not only raises serious animal welfare concerns' but also constituted a 'direct breach' of Escas rules, which include that once sheep have their throats cut, they are not to be moved or have the wound touched until the animal is unconscious. This contrasts with domestic rules for the export meat market, which requires sheep to be electrically stunned prior to slaughter. It's the sixth time since 2018 that animals exported by Perth-based Livestock Shipping Services (LSS) have been investigated by Australian authorities for alleged breaches of Escas rules. LSS is owned by Jordanian umbrella company Hijazi & Ghosheh, which also runs the slaughterhouse at the centre of the current investigations. In July 2021, shipping of Australian animals to another Hijazi & Ghosheh-owned slaughterhouse in Jordan was permanently suspended, following similar breaches of welfare rules. In 2023, an undercover investigation by Animals Australia alleged that Australian sheep exported to Oman by LSS had been sold outside approved supply chains, in violation of Escas rules. The department has listed the incident as under investigation, but has not yet released an outcome. Escas was established in 2012 in response to a public outcry after a Four Corners investigation, which showed undercover footage taken by Animals Australia of cattle being beaten, kicked and stunned with sledgehammers before being slaughtered in Indonesia. Hamade said Australia lacks jurisdiction to police offshore processing facilities. 'The sanctions imposed by the department of agriculture are generally tokenistic – such as assigning an extra observer on a future shipment,' Hamade said. 'For a multimillion-dollar live export company, this amounts to little more than a slap on the wrist.' LSS did not respond to questions about allegations it had breached Escas rules. The company's website states that it has exported more than 3.3 million sheep and 500,000 cows from Australia to overseas markets in the past five years. 'LSS is committed to ensuring high standards of animal care and welfare are maintained at all stages of the live export process,' the website states. The agriculture department did not answer detailed questions from Guardian Australia, including whether the slaughterhouse at the centre of the latest allegations would also be suspended from accepting Australian sheep. 'The department can confirm that it received information from Animals Australia in June 2025, alleging Escas breaches during Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) 2025,' a spokesperson said. 'It is not appropriate to provide further detail at this time.' The Australian Livestock Exporters' Council CEO, Mark Harvey-Sutton, said the exporter was working closely with officials. 'At this stage, any breaches of Escas appear to be minor and corrective actions have been implemented,' Harvey-Sutton said. Dr Jed Goodfellow, co-founder and policy director at lobby group the Australian Alliance for Animals, said the Australian government relied completely on the exporter to report non-compliances with Escas. 'Whenever Animals Australia is able to have investigators in the field, almost 100% of the time they are able to detect non-compliance with Escas,' Goodfellow said. 'If it were not for having an independent third party reviewing it, the issues would never be reported.' In a 2021 review of Escas, the then inspector-general of live animal exports, Ross Carter, recommended that the department improve compliance monitoring. 'Loss of control and traceability, sometimes with poor animal welfare outcomes, still occurs at low but chronic levels,' Carter said. 'I have recommended further exploring the use of visual recording and electronic scanning technologies in markets or for exporters where demonstrated systemic issues occur.' Clift's live exports review and audit is expected to be released in September. Livestock, including cattle, can spend weeks at sea and, according to veterinarian Lynn Simpson, commonly suffer heat stress, starvation, disease and injury during the journey. Simpson was the vet on board more than 50 live export voyages and now campaigns against the trade. Australia is the largest exporter of sheep meat globally, and the industry was worth $4.5bn in 2023, according to government figures. However, live export by sea makes up less than 2% of this trade, with 99% of the live exports produced in Western Australia. The pending live sheep ban had been the subject of successive protests by advocacy group Keep the Sheep which accelerated a split between the Victorian and national farmers' federations. As recently as 28 March, farmers and truck drivers blocked major roads in Perth in protest against the ban. But less than three months later, Keep the Sheep announced it would halt its campaign following Labor's landslide election victory in May. The live export of cattle, to ports like Indonesia, will continue. Sign up for the Rural Network email newsletter
The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Australians could cut power bills by 90% if they made their homes more energy efficient, report finds
The debate over where Australia gets its energy from has played out like a 'comic-book death battle between coal and renewables' in recent years, according to Luke Menzel, the chief executive officer of the Energy Efficiency Council. Discussions over coal versus renewables, the role of gas and the speed of infrastructure rollout to bring renewables online had been 'important', Menzel said. 'But there's a whole other conversation we need to be having. And that's about how we are using energy.' Menzel and other energy experts say political noise has often overshadowed the role of energy efficiency in Australian homes and how to cut rising household bills. The latest of several reports to make the case for boosting energy efficiency is from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). IEEFA found Australian households could cut their power bills by more than 90% by implementing a range of energy efficiency measures. Released on Wednesday, the report calculated potential savings of between 82% and 94% if households installed solar and a home battery and used efficient appliances – such as heat pumps, air-conditioners and electric induction cooktops. The report said with federal and state government policies to incentivise home energy efficiency, a goal of halving household energy bills in a decade is achievable. 'We've seen over the last few years that energy prices and cost of living has become an emerging concern, but the debate has been around one-off rebates or debates on how to generate power,' Jay Gordon, an energy finance analyst at IEEFA, said. 'That's important, but it misses the point when you see these 80% to 90% cost reductions.' Last month, energy experts congratulated the Victorian government for a suite of measures to improve home energy efficiency, including a ban on gas heating and hot water systems in new homes from January 2027. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email The Albanese government's new $2.3bn home battery program, which officially kicked off last week, provided discounts of about 30% on batteries. Wednesday's IEEFA report projected that households could make savings of between 82% and 94% if they: Installed an 8kw rooftop solar system and a 10kwh battery Used reverse-cycle air conditioning instead of gas or electric heaters Swapped gas or old electric water heaters for heat pumps Replaced gas cooktops with electric induction The IEEFA modelling did not take into account the further gains that Gordon said can be made by improving the thermal efficiency of homes: how well they can hold heat in the winter or keep heat out in summer. More thermally efficient homes give households the option to use more daytime energy from solar to either pre-heat or pre-cool their homes ahead of the evening peak. Menzel said though technologies such as heat pumps and solar are well established, policies to encourage their take-up are a challenge. 'With electrification and efficiency you're talking about a much broader range of product types and interventions that look different in different parts of the economy,' he said. 'It's a heavier lift, but it's where we need to go.' Australian homes use about a quarter of the country's electricity, and account for more than 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Cutting gas use in homes could also ease the supply pressures in the east coast, Menzel said. Two reports in 2023 and 2024 from the independent Climateworks Centre, based at Monash University, have made the case for a 'renovation wave' across homes in Australia, especially those built before 2003 when minimum energy efficiency rules were introduced to national building codes. Steps such as upgrading windows, adding insulation to walls, ceilings and floors, and upgrading appliances could save up to $2,200 a year on a household bill, the centre's research has claimed. Dr Gill Armstrong, the centre's buildings program manager, said: 'They're tried and tested. It's low-hanging fruit, but it's also the one area where we can move fast for households to get the benefit of lower bills. 'There's a growing awareness that homes can be improved quite quickly. It's a no-brainer for the federal government.'
