Despite continuing optimism from Prime Minister Albanese and Defence Minister Marles and the defence commentariat about the AUKUS submarine deal it continues to attract significant uncertainty and doubt in the wider community. This centres around issues such as sovereignty, our industrial capability to manage the construction and longer term maintenance and the massive donation ( over $A4 billion) to the US’s own worrying ailing defence industry.

United States warmakers have become so skilled at propaganda that not only can they wage a war of aggression without arousing protest; they can also compel liberals to denounce peace activists using language reminiscent of the McCarthy era.

Take the case of Syria. The people and groups one would normally count on to oppose wars have been the ones largely defending it. They have also often been the ones to label war opponents as “Assad apologists” or “genocide deniers”—causing them to be blacklisted.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says Donald Trump is a “relentless gaslighter” with a “powerful narcissistic self-belief”, and the best way to deal with such a “bully” is to stand up to him.

In an article for the journal Foreign Affairs, Turnbull offered advice to world leaders who may have to face Trump’s return to the White House in 2025.

"As Russian strikes intensify on the front line and against energy infrastructure, the two presidents will discuss the situation on the ground," the presidential palace said Tuesday.

The meeting between the two leaders is set to take place after D-Day commemorations. 

The Ukrainian president, who will be welcomed by France's Armed Forces Minister Sebastien Lecornu with military honours on Friday morning, will visit a site of the Franco-German arms group KNDS near Paris.

Hundreds of civil servants have written to David Cameron urging the government to publish its legal advice on whether its support to Israel breaches international law, writes Matt Benson, a former aid official.

By Matt Benson
Declassified UK

The almost total lack of any positive coverage of China in the British media further closes off the scope even for making arguments that policy should reflect opportunities from dealing with China.

Foreword by Gemma Cheng’er Deng, PhD student, Lau China Institute:

One reason Israel is constantly criticised, even from within its obedient posse of Global West backers, is that it has failed to articulate what it has planned for the “day after” the completion of its Gaza-cleansing, genocide project. The respected historian, Adam Tooze, recently revealed that future planning for “Gaza 2035” has, however, been a focus of intense, surreal Israeli attention.

Ukrainian men are reporting incidents of wrongful draft notices, unprofessional medical commissions and coercive mobilization tactics.

With Ukraine’s military facing mounting deaths and a stalemate on the battlefield, army recruiters have become increasingly aggressive in their efforts to replenish the ranks, in some cases pulling men off the streets and whisking them to recruiting centers using intimidation and even physical force.

Politics have come to this in America. Several former US presidents committed extremely serious war crimes that killed, maimed and displaced huge numbers of people without any suggestion that they be charged with these crimes. However, a former president Donald Trump has been found guilty of the crime of trying to cover up a brief sexual encounter with a porn actress that he denied occurred. Just how this is a crime is a little hard to understand.

….. The newspaper points out that, ‘Biden resisted the delivery of F-16s due to concerns they would be used for bombing targets within Russian borders.’ Ukraine regularly hits military, industrial, and energy infrastructure targets inside Russia, even up to 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the border, particularly targeting Russia’s oil industry.

President Joe Biden does not want the standoff with Russia over Ukraine to trigger a global war, White House National Security spokesman John Kirby has said. He made his statement days after the White House confirmed that Biden had granted Kiev permission to use US-supplied weapons systems for strikes deep inside Russia.

Ukraine had requested to ease the restrictions on the use of foreign arms after Russian troops launched a new offensive in Ukraine’s eastern Kharkov Region last month and have captured several villages along the border.

“We’ve been concerned about escalation since the very beginning of this war. And those concerns remain valid,” Kirby told ABC News on Sunday. “The president has said he does not want to be responsible for starting World War III. We’re not looking for a conflict with Russia, another nuclear power.”

Israel has waged a nearly decade-long campaign against the International Criminal Court (ICC), deploying its intelligence agencies to spy on, hack, and pressure its senior staff members in an effort to undermine the court’s investigations. 

Tel Aviv “deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries,” according to a joint investigation by the Guardian and two Israeli magazines, +972and Local Call. 

This “war” against the ICC has been ongoing for nearly 10 years.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has married again, tying the knot for the fifth time at his California vineyard on Saturday.

The former Fox and News Corp chairman, 93, married 67-year-old Elena Zhukova after a short engagement. The pair started dating in 2023 and confirmed their plans to wed to the New York Times in March this year.

Zhukova, a retired molecular biologist, was introduced to Murdoch by his third wife Wendi Deng.

Moscow native Zhukova was previously married to billionaire Alexander Zhukov.

Trump and ‘our democracy’: What happens when a political system becomes a meme?
It is a sign of deep crisis that the concept of democracy has devolved into an ideologically tinged narrative that is defended with empty and exaggerated rhetoric

The verdict in Donald Trump’s hush money trial has bestirred the usual characters in all the predictable ways. And never far from anybody's lips is the word ‘democracy’.

By Henry Johnston