Adani denies claims it sold ‘below-market coal’ leading to Queensland missing out on hundreds of millions in royalties

Adani has consistently sold coal from its Queensland mine far below market rates, according to claims made in new analysis, potentially reducing the royalties owed to the state government by hundreds of millions of dollars.The research director at the Australia Institute, Rod Campbell, calculated that Adani sold thermal coal from its Carmichael mine at an average of just over $A100 a tonne during the 2023 to 2025 financial years – its first three full years of operation.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe period saw huge coal price spikes after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Australian benchmark prices surging above $A600/t in late 2022, before moderating.Even allowing for discounted prices for Adani’s lower-quality coal, Campbell said the difference between the “realised price and expected market price is huge”.“This discrepancy means that royalty payments were far lower than might have been expected

Don’t give in to big pharma on drug pricing | Letters

While the chief executive of Eli Lilly may lament the UK’s drug prices (UK is ‘worst country in Europe’ for drug prices, says Mounjaro maker, 24 September), the NHS should celebrate them. The system put in place for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of new drugs is respected the world over and is successful in applying the principle that funding a new product should not damage the NHS as a whole. This principle of cost-effectiveness has led to widespread price reductions for the NHS that have allowed the service as a whole to benefit.The chief executive of Eli Lilly links the recent pausing or cancelling of pharmaceutical industry investments in the UK to drug pricing here, when these are down to the drug companies’ desperation to kowtow to Donald Trump.Further to this, the talk of increasing Nice’s cost-effectiveness threshold, and even index-linking this, is a disgrace (NHS could pay 25% more for medicines under plan to end row with drugmakers and Trump, 8 October)

Driverless taxis from Waymo will be on London’s roads next year, US firm announces

People in London could be hiring driverless taxis from Waymo next year, after the US autonomous vehicle company announced plans to launch its services there.The UK capital will become the first European city to have an autonomous taxi service of the kind now familiar in San Francisco and four other US cities using Waymo’s technology.The launch pits an innovation sometimes dubbed the “robotaxi” against London’s famous black cabs, which can trace their history back to the first horse-drawn hackney coaches of the Tudor era.But a representative of the capital’s cab drivers said they were not concerned by the arrival of a “fairground ride” and questioned the reliability of driverless vehicles.Waymo said its cars were now on their way to London and would start driving on the capital’s streets in the coming weeks with “trained human specialists”, or safety drivers, behind the wheel

iPhone Air review: Apple’s pursuit of absolute thinness

The iPhone Air is a technical and design marvel that asks: how much are you willing to give up for a lightweight and ultra-slender profile?The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.Beyond the obvious engineering effort that has gone into creating one of the slimmest phones ever made, the Air is a reductive exercise that boils down the iPhone into the absolute essentials in a premium body.Cut away the rear cameras, slim down the battery, remove the stereo speakers and maximise the screen, and what is left is an impressive sliver of titanium and glass

Essendon held their nerve and their man Zach Merrett – but to what end? | Jonathan Horn

After a few days of trade period, a fortnight of Trade Radio, 11 months of trade speculation, and a few thousand variations of the phrase “it’s an interesting one”, I’d reached the point where I genuinely believed that I was about to be traded to Essendon. My internal monologue thrummed with trade-speak – the hedging, padding, euphemistic language that’s used to buy time and fill space. Even when walking the dog or purchasing a hammer, I was exercising my options, in good dialogue and monitoring the situation.For a few years, trade period was like that old Del Amriti song Nothing Ever Happens. But this year there were captains, club champions, Coleman and Norm Smith medallists up for grabs

Sumo stars balance power, intricacy and spectacle at London showcase

An enraptured crowd soaked up the atmosphere at the first official sumo tournament held outside Japan in 34 yearsAt 6pm exactly, the first, and only, professional sumo dohyo anywhere outside Japan was finally ready. It had taken four days to build. The clay, shipped up from Kettering, where, the experts said, the earth had just the right consistency, had been shaped, sculpted, pounded into a stage, the six-tonne wooden canopy had been joined, and hung from the roof, the rice-straw bales had been beaten into shape with empty beer bottles, brought over especially for the purpose, and laid in a circle around the ring, the arena had been blessed by three priests, doused with saki, and strewn with salt.Outside, an eager crowd was gathering underneath the streaming banners. There were corporate sorts, charging their bar bills to company expenses, a troop of diplomats, going to glad hand the Japanese ambassador at a VIP reception, and an awful lot of sumo super fans, some of them big men with beards, who first fell in love with the sport when it was on Channel 4 in the early 90s, some of them slight young women head-to-toe in Comme des Garçons, some middle-aged salarymen holding banners decorated with pictures of their favourite rikishi