Pauline Hanson is different, she claims, because of her “resilience”, “integrity” and “honesty”.

“This country is ready for change, they’re fed up with the two major political parties,” she told Andrew Bolt on Sky News last year. “They don’t trust the politicians. They’re sick of the lies, they have had enough of everything.

 

Pauline Hanson keeps forgetting to declare gifts from Gina Rinehart. Please explain

BY Sarah Martin

 

“They want someone who is going to be upfront and honest with them and I have always been that.”

The US negotiating team is heading to Pakistan for the next round of Iran peace talks on Monday, President Donald Trump has announced, while renewing his threat to strike Iran’s infrastructure if no deal is reached.
In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump accused Tehran of violating the temporary ceasefire – set to expire on Wednesday – with reported attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz amid a renewed blockade of the waterway.

“Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz – a total violation of our ceasefire agreement! That wasn’t nice, was it?” he wrote, claiming French and British vessels were targeted. Before declaring that his “Representatives are going to Islamabad…for negotiations.”

 

As warfare shifts decisively toward autonomous and distributed systems, Australia’s massive investment in nuclear submarines risks locking in a costly and inflexible strategy.

Richard Marles gave a polished performance at the National Press Club. Smooth, confident, practised. He spoke about drones, autonomy and the changing character of war. He sounded modern. But beneath the language of innovation sat an older and much heavier reality: Australia is still tying itself to one of the slowest, most expensive and least adaptable military projects in its history.

That is the contradiction at the heart of AUKUS.

 

P&I today begins a major new series - rethinking Australia’s foreign policy. The United States is becoming more erratic and less reliable, and Australia must respond by insulating itself – strengthening regional ties, rethinking defence settings, and reducing strategic dependence, according to John Menadue. 

 

John Menadue

Plan B: insulating ourselves from the US

 

Trump and Netanyahu are the most dangerous persons on the planet. US policy in the Middle East is not driven by oil. It is driven by Netanyahu. And allies in the Gulf are paying a very heavy price for allowing US bases on their soil. The same fate might be ours with northern Australia becoming a US military colony.

The Greens need to get out of their own bubble and do some very serious soul searching if they are ever to have broad appeal, argues a co-founder of the Queensland and Australian Greens, Drew Hutton.

 

Drew Hutton

How the Greens could win 25 per cent of the vote

 

University of Sydney’s appointment of pro-Israel academic Michael Abrahams-Sprod as antisemitism adviser has exposed management to an embarrassing conflict in its approach to freedom of expression. Wendy Bacon reports.

 

Antisemitism or anti-Zionism? Sydney Uni pressure to silence Israel, apartheid critics

by Wendy Bacon

 

TEHRAN (Sputnik) - Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz from Saturday evening until the United States completely lifts its naval blockade, the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy Command said on Saturday.

"As a result of the violation of the ceasefire regime, the Strait of Hormuz will be closed from the evening of today [Saturday], until the US lifts the naval blockade," the IRGC Navy said, as quoted by Iran's state-run IRIB broadcaster.

The IRGC also warned of strikes on any vessels that attempt to approach the waterway, which will be considered as "cooperation with the enemy [the US]."

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday downplayed his feud with US President Donald Trump over the Iran war, saying his remarks have been misinterpreted.

 

The ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee on Friday morning announced a “sweeping” probe into alleged self-enrichment by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump who has served as a high-profile White House envoy in the Middle East while also, according to Congressman Jamie Raskin, “soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf monarchies for [his] private business ventures.”

Ladies and gentlemen,

My visit to the People’s Republic of China was held yesterday and today. Yesterday, I held talks with Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, which lasted over four hours. During the talks, we discussed a broad range of issues, mostly our bilateral relations but also international issues, which is understandable. The international situation, which is deteriorating as a result of the actions by our Western colleagues and developments in Ukraine, Latin America, the Strait of Hormuz and other parts of the Eurasian continent we share with China, is directly influencing bilateral relations between various countries, including between Russia. China and our partners in the SCO, BRICS and other multilateral associations.

A report titled ‘Another Genocide Behind Walls’ was published this week, bearing witness to unspeakable atrocities committed by IDF soldiers. Andrew Brown reports.

Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence.

A report published just days ago by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documents testimony from a Palestinian woman detained at Sde Teiman who was filmed being raped by two Israeli soldiers over two days. She knows the footage exists because when it was over, her captors hung her by her wrists during interrogation and showed it to her.

They told her they would publish it unless she cooperated.

For Pakistan, it's critically important not only to serve as a peacemaker, but also to succeed as a peacemaker, economic policy analyst Syed Ali Ehsan told Sputnik.

As the world watches the US-Iran conflict de-escalate, Pakistan finds itself trapped in a paradox. It is both one of the crisis' most vulnerable victims — teetering on the edge of an energy catastrophe — and a potential peacemaker with a real chance to rescue its own economy.

 

The Price of the Blockade

Pakistan's reliance on fossil fuel imports from Gulf states makes it critically vulnerable, Syed Ali Ehsan, chief development officer at the Policy Research Institute of Market Economy, told Sputnik.

The country holds no strategic fuel reserves to survive a blockade and its imports remain undiversified.

A sharp fall in confidence and rising fuel prices point to a potential downturn, but traditional policy responses risk making the situation worse.

After a gradual recovery from the substantial fall in real incomes and the rapid increases in interest rates during the three years following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian economy now appears to be in the early stages of another, potentially significant downturn.

 

Saul Eslake

Another interest rate rise will tip Australia into a recession we don’t have to have

 

On the menu today: President Trump is adding his signature to the U.S. dollar. Also, a long, numbers-heavy look at the assertion going viral that the state government of California is “functionally bankrupt.” In what probably counts for optimism, I would argue the outlook for California’s budget in the coming years is bad — really bad — but not quite apocalyptic this-will-tear-apart-the-country bad. Read on.

When We Said, ‘Trump Should Sign the Bill,’ We Meant Something Different

Look at it this way; at least President Trump isn’t putting his face on American currency: