The forms of 19th-century European fictions, including the Russian, have a powerful relation to older Christian stories, from the Bible to Bunyan. The novels meet the old tales with part parody, part dialogue, part rejection and reconstruction.

The Idiot
by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by David McDuff

The Poetry Of Reality is a podcast hosted by renowned evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins. This is an audio and video experience that tracks our acclaimed protagonist in his navigation of the natural world and his pursuit of truth through scientific curiosity.

WELCOME TO The Poetry of Reality

The ABC has long held a reputation as Australia’s sober, publicly-funded bulwark against tabloid sensationalism – the broadcaster you turn to when you want analysis, not alarmism.

Which is why their recent report “Company in charge of proposed incinerator outside Geelong has direct links to the Chinese government” on a proposed waste-to-energy plant near Geelong reads more like a Netflix drama: Red Furnace – China’s Great Bin Fire.

Fred Zhang

The Daily Mail has revealed that the grandfather of Blaise Metreweli, who is expected to become the first woman to lead the UK’s foreign intelligence service (MI6), was a Nazi collaborator who oversaw atrocities in occupied Ukraine.

Metreweli’s father, Constantine, was naturalized in British-administered Hong Kong in 1966. The London Gazette identified him at the time as Dobrowolski, known as Constantine Metreweli, of uncertain nationality.

In a story published Thursday, the Mail confirmed that Constantine was the son of a German-Polish Ukrainian man – also named Constantine – who worked for the Nazis and was implicated in the mass killing of Jews and other atrocities during World War II.

Suddenly, nothing grew

The crops around the planet died

The air went dry without dew

The wind carried sands that fried

Hot like a Venusian summer

Cold like a Martian winter

What happened asked rat number two

Rat number one could not answer

He was dead as two would soon be too

We’re completely out of luck

Number two thought, barely cogent

Those nuking monkeys with their muck

Their global warming let run amuck

That mega solar flare coming last night

An asteroid from Jupiter’s Trojan

Falling with its destructive might 

Dislodged by a stray rocket

Of a scientific dumb cadet

And Superman down with Kryptonite

In a ruined movie house on fire

Playing with no noise nor fanfare

All ills at the same time from the orient

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the international community must act to prevent Iran from leaving the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which prohibits it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Some Iranian politicians have threatened to withdraw from the NPT in retaliation for recent US and Israeli strikes on the country’s nuclear facilities.

While Macron argued the strikes were “genuinely effective,” he cautioned that the “worst-case scenario” would be Iran quitting the landmark arms control treaty.

These thoughts come to you from a bomb shelter underneath my hotel. My mobile tells me another one of Vladimir Putin’s ballistic missiles is headed our way.

I tell you this not for the drama, but to remind you that this is no longer a novelty for millions of Ukrainians.

It has been this way most nights for three years now. Being voyeuristic about it here would be to undervalue the emotional toll it has taken on so many people. I’ll be gone tomorrow, and they’ll still have to endure. 

Australia’s media establishment has a problem and it’s not just about declining revenues or shrinking newsrooms. It’s about a fundamental failure to understand where we live and what’s at stake in our own neighbourhood.

Bruce Dover

While authoritarian regimes weaponise information across the broader Indo-Pacific, Australian news outlets continue to treat our nearest neighbours as if they no longer existed. Certainly, the Middle East crisis and our daily obsession with Donald Trump’s latest pronouncements have added to our myopia, but have we forgotten where we live?

It is a quaint fact that the mediocre critic demands, in the one breath, a Parliament representative of all the people, and a Parliament of all the virtues and intelligences. A Parliament of genius would not represent the people, who are emphatically not genius, and Parliaments as they are, with one or two men above the average intelligence, and many men of average intelligence, and more men little better than morons, represents the nation — any nation.

RANDOLPH BEDFORD, Naught to Thirty-three (1944).

GUSNOTE: AND THIS INCLUDES WOMEN IN POLITICS AS WELL.... OKAY, I APOLOGISE....

YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

Australia has sanctioned the Russian pop singer Shaman, along with 36 other individuals and seven organizations, according to the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The list, published on Thursday, also includes renowned actor and TV presenter Vyacheslav Manucharov.

The people and enterprises were targeted for “engaging in an activity or performing a function that is of economic or strategic significance to Russia.” Those blacklisted are barred from entering the country and face asset freezes, meaning any holdings in Australia will be blocked.

The list of sanctioned individuals includes the head of the Republic of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov; Russia’s First Deputy Energy Minister, Pavel Sorokin; media producer Anton Zlatopolsky; journalist Aram Gabrelyanov; and three-time Olympic synchronized swimming champion and Moscow City Duma deputy, Maria Kiseleva.

On this episode of The David Frum Show, David opens with a Memorial Day message about corruption and extortion in the Trump White House, including revelations about meme-coin pay-to-play schemes and foreign-financed golf courses.

US President Donald Trump has called for an end to the corruption trial of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, days after Israel and Iran reached a ceasefire.

Trump showered his Middle Eastern ally with praise in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday evening. “Bibi Netanyahu was a WARRIOR, like perhaps no other Warrior in the History of Israel,” he wrote.

He hailed Netanyahu’s leadership during Israel’s conflict with Iran and slammed the allegations against him as “politically motivated.”

Ukraine can still achieve a military victory over Russia, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and head of the US European Command, Alexus Grynkewich, said during a US Senate hearing on Tuesday. He was confirmed in his new role with the US-led military bloc earlier this month.

“I believe Ukraine can win,” he responded when asked if Kiev could still prevail despite significant casualties and waning financial support. Grynkewich also noted that Ukrainian forces are displaying a level of tenacity that is hard for outsiders to fully comprehend.

He did not specify what form a Ukrainian victory might take, nor did he provide further detail regarding battlefield prospects.

Almost all of Australia’s top chief executives are, according to their boards at least, knocking it out of the park in terms of performance.