Nearly 60 percent of retired senior British military officers now working in the defence industry have appeared as expert commentators in UK media without any disclosure of their commercial ties, a conflict research charity has found.

The London-based group Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) examined a decade of UK media appearances by former British senior military figures. 

They promised to “Drain the Swamp” and end the “Forever Wars,” but from cabinet picks to new military interventions, the MAGA movement has been successfully co-opted by the neoconservative uniparty, with the help of a spineless influencer class that convinced the base to love the boot simply because it was painted red.

The Great “Red Hat” Psyop: How the Establishment Co-Opted MAGA

BY MATT AGORIST

A bitter row has erupted between Kiev and Warsaw, after Volodymyr Zelensky renamed a Ukrainian military unit the “Heroes of the UPA”. The UPA – Ukrainian Insurgent Army – was an ultranationalist faction heavily implicated in the Holocaust, which slaughtered up to 100,000 Polish civilians during World War II. In addition to commemorating the mass-murdering militant group, the corpse of Andriy Melnyk, leader of UPA parent the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), was reburied in Kiev.

One Nation can win the next federal election. Whether that comes to pass depends on a galaxy of factors whose orbits we can only guess. But now, for the first time, it’s possible to see how those orbits could deliver Pauline Hanson to the Lodge, even if it’s not the likeliest outcome.

Why One Nation can win the next federal election

BY Waleed Aly

Yes, this is about polling. But it’s about more than that. It’s about the forces beneath the numbers which are all heading in one direction. The only question is if and when those forces halt, and how far One Nation has gotten in the meantime.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that the US is going to be launching major strikes in Iran, while President Trump says he’ll “bomb the shit out of” the Iranians if they don’t agree to a deal of his liking. 

A new Explosive Weapons Monitor report finds civilians are continuing to bear the brunt of explosive weapons in populated areas, with Israel’s armed forces responsible for the majority of recorded civilian fatalities in 2025.

While the overall number of civilians killed by explosive weapons decreased by 21 per cent last year, largely due to Israel scaling back attacks on the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in response to ceasefire deals, “the majority – 56 per cent – of all global civilian fatalities in 2025 could be attributed to Israeli armed forces, most of which occurred in Palestine,” according to an annual report released Wednesday.

The European Commission should have revealed the details of its Covid-19 vaccine contracts with drugmakers to the public, an adviser to the EU’s highest court has declared. Among the contracts was a deal with Pfizer that commission President Ursula von der Leyen negotiated via text message.

In an opinion published on Thursday, Advocate General Athanasios Rantos argued that the commission’s insistence on secrecy made it impossible to know whether its vaccine negotiators had any conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical companies that they procured the shots from.

The commission signed six advance purchase agreements with pharmaceutical companies – including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna – between 2020 and 2021. The contracts were worth a combined €71 billion ($82 billion).

One Nation’s surge is easiest to read as anger. It is better read through a different lens – gathering the Australians who formed their sense of who they are in an offline world, where belonging was anchored where they grew up.

Kos Samaras

Australian Press Council caves into the Zionist lobby and abandons its mission to defend free speech by vilifying cartoonist Cathy Wilcox. Michael West and Kim Wingerei.

Yesterday, the APC, self-proclaimed defenders of free speech, decided to uphold a complaint against SMH/The Age cartoonist Cathy Wilcox’s depiction of how Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel lobby pressured the Government into holding a Royal Commission into antisemitism.

Vale the Press Council. Caves in to anonymous pressure campaign

by Kim Wingerei and Michael West

On June 9 local time, Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever, commenting on the upcoming EU summit, claimed that European leaders are "increasingly wary" of China. He added that the summit would replace mentions of China with so-called "geo-economic imbalances," because "we are so afraid that we don't even dare to do that."

Belgian PM is not ‘afraid of China,’ but afraid of taking responsibility: Global Times editorial

By Global Times

Democratic Party leaders had a chance this week to push back against Israel’s violent expansionism and the Israel lobby’s massive political spending in the United States.

Once again, Democrats chose instead to punt the issue despite plummeting public support for Israel, both among their base and the wider U.S. public, ahead of the midterms. 

Democrats Reject Resolution Condemning AIPAC Money in Primaries

“Democrats chose genocide over winning in 2024,” one Palestinian rights advocate said. “When does this stop?”

By Mike Ludwig , TRUTHOUT

Tony Abbott, the Liberals’ new activist federal president, is preparing to convene meetings around the country in an effort to drum up membership and support for the struggling party. 

After the Newspoll published at the weekend showed the Coalition falling to 18% (down 2 points), with One Nation on 31% and Labor on 30%, Abbott acknowledged the threat of the insurgent party as well as the Liberals’ difficulty with credibility.

View from The Hill: Tony Abbott to tour the country, trying to energise Liberals

BY Michelle Grattan

In a Tuesday email to supporters he wrote: 

“Like you, I can read the polls.” 

A FIFA Peace Prize, astronomical ticket prices, hiked train fares, threatened boycotts and a consumer complaint.

The build-up to the 2026 World Cup has been overshadowed by sociopolitical issues, which will continue to loom over the tournament.

A lot of the headlines have been generated by US President Donald Trump, who has made various threats and promises in the months leading up to the World Cup, which is being hosted in Mexico, the US and Canada — though almost all of the issues have been in the US.

But he's far from alone in causing angst among soccer fans across the globe, even here in Australia.