AUSTRALIA: A record number of workers are covered by collective agreements and securing stronger wage growth outcomes, according to new data published by the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations today.

The March 2025 Trends in Enterprise Bargaining report shows that the number of employees covered by collective agreements had risen to 2.67 million, up from 2.14 million in March 2024.

GERMANY: MPs voted today to suspend family reunions for many migrants as part of a drive by the new right-wing government for a harsher approach to immigration.

Parliament’s lower house voted by 444 to 135 to suspend the possibility of family reunions for two years for migrants who have “subsidiary protection,” a status that falls short of asylum.

At the end of March, more than 388,000 people living in Germany had the status, which was granted to many people fleeing Syria’s civil war.

NORWAY: Police in Oslo announced charges today against Marius Borg Hoiby, the eldest son of Norway’s crown princess, on multiple counts including rape, sexual assault and bodily harm involving a “double digit” number of alleged victims.

Mr Hoiby is also the stepson of heir to the throne Crown Prince Haakon.

SUDAN: The country’s civil war is spilling across its south-western border into the Central African Republic, which is already battered by its own conflict with rebels, the United Nations peacekeeping chief has warned.

Undersecretary-general Jean Pierre Lacroix told the UN security council on Thursday that “armed Sudanese elements” were to blame for an attack that killed a UN peacekeeper near the Central African Republic’s border with Sudan last Friday.