Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce says he regrets not doing more while in government to secure fuel reserves, as Australia grapples with supply shortages triggered by wars in the Middle East.

Fuel prices have risen sharply amid uncertainty over Iran's blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Treasurer Jim Chalmers today flagged the flow-on impact could see inflation peak "somewhere between the mid-to-high fours" depending on the duration of the conflict.

The government released about six days' worth of petrol and five days of diesel from its emergency stockpile as part of an internationally coordinated response to the shortage, the first time it had used the reserves since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

8 Mar 2016 — New York, US - A group of Palestinians has launched an ambitious $34.5bn lawsuit against US-based tycoons, charities and firms for supporting Israeli land grabs, settlement-building and other violations of Palestinians' rights these past four decades.

They seek damages from Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; Irving Moskowitz, a philanthropist with property interests in East Jerusalem; and megachurch pastor John Hagee for financing the construction of settlements on Palestinian soil.

Lawyers also name such charities as Christian Friends of Israeli Communities and private firms, including Dead Sea-based cosmetics maker Ahava, UK-based security firm G4S and the industrial powerhouse Israel Chemicals Limited.

In 1990, Bernard Lewis famously wrote about "the roots of Muslim rage". The essay, along with other influential works produced in the 1980s and 90s, helped usher in an era of commentary about extremism and political violence in the Muslim-majority world.

Lewis' work, like that of other orientalist scholars and analysts, downplayed western imperialism and aggression and was plagued by essentialism, exaggeration and distortion.

Amid holy war on Iran, will the West examine the roots of Christian and Jewish rage?

BY Mohamad Elmasry

The International Order [AMERICAN DICTATORSHIP/HEGEMONY] seeks to manage the complex relationship of institutions, nations, and their conflicting goals. A recent workshop by the Center for Global Security Research [A THINKTANK SUBSERVIANT TO THE AMERICAN DICTATORSHIP/HEGEMONY] sought to tie the dynamics of this order to the domain of nuclear weapons.

Blog #149 – With a Little Help from My Friends: The Need for a Strong Alliance Network to Shape Global Affairs

BY Matthew Bennett

This commentary comprises my own view of the issue at hand. It draws insight specifically from discussions on the importance of alliances in maintaining progress towards foreign policy goals.

The Old Order

Public debate about genocide in Gaza is increasingly dominated by claims of antisemitism. The result is a political climate where outrage at Israel’s actions is recast as prejudice.

In the present circumstances of a genocide, the obvious reason for a tidal wave of panic about antisemitism is that the efforts to deny Israel’s vast crimes is not working. Everyone can see the truth on their mobile phones. Gaza looks like Hiroshima after the atom bomb in 1945. Who in their right mind can believe that this is self-defence, targeting Hamas militants hiding behind “human shields”?

Peter Slezak

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) effectively endorsed the US-Israeli war against Iran Wednesday with the passage of Resolution 2817 (2026). The text “condemns in the strongest terms” Iran’s retaliatory strikes on the Gulf states, while saying nothing about the nearly two-week-long bombardment of the country of 90 million people by American imperialism and its Israeli ally.

United Nations condemns Iran’s self-defence strikes amid American imperialism’s war of extermination

BY Jordan Shilton

The ‘modern’ Labor Party does not lack power, but it lacks the will to use it. Andrew Brown on Labor’s retreat from reform and what it means for Australia. Part 2 of 6.

Labor’s unwillingness to embark on major reform is not a failure of intelligence, competence, or goodwill. It is a governing disposition.

Power is treated as something to survive rather than wield. Risk is managed. Conflict is avoided. Moral judgment is filtered through polling before it is tested against justice. What remains is a government fluent in process and cautious to the point of paralysis.

Structural reform is ruled out early.

Not because it is wrong, but because it is uncomfortable.

The Australian Labor Party (ALP) consistently fueled voters' horror of American leader Donald Trump and the "US trade war with the whole world," and then skillfully exploited this fear, turning it into votes and gaining a stunning majority in the House of Representatives. 88 seats is an unexpected result, even for those who supported the Labor Party during the 2025 election campaign and wished them victory.

ASIO operates lawfully, in proportion to threats we are investigating, and in line with the standards and expectations of the Australian community. ASIO does not just do what is legal, we do what is right. 

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979 (ASIO Act) defines security for the purposes of ASIO’s work—and in doing so carefully limits the scope of ASIO’s activities. These are commonly referred to as the ‘heads of security’ and include the protection of Australia and its people from:

Some observers of the current EU ‘elites’, including this author, used to believe that their defining feature – apart from things such as complicity in genocide and wars of aggression with Israel and the US, bigoted xenophobia about Russia and China, and, of course, pervasive corruption – was an absolute inability to learn.

The EU never learns – except for the wrong lessons

The bloc’s economic situation was dire even before the shocks of the Iran war, and yet it doubles down on supporting the US and Israel

BY Tarik Cyril Amar

We must admit, we stand corrected: Those running the EU are able to learn. The real problem is their relentless compulsion to learn the wrong thing. We are not dealing with non-learners but anti-learners: where others progress from experience, they regress.

As the US-Israel offensive against Iran reshapes the Middle East, new alliances are forming between Muslim-majority states such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia in response to Bibi’s ‘Greater Israel’ ambitions.

Greater Israel: What’s Next After Iran?… Turkey? Pakistan?

BY Aleena Im 

Before getting dressed in the morning, we should think of what make us human… We should look at ourselves naked in front of the mirror, assess what our inner child has grown into. There, we need to dismiss all the ideologies that came with the uniforms of civilisation. For the last 150 years, for a male, certainly in the Western world, this uniform has taken the relative convention of the suit and tie…

This uniform has seen many styles and adaptation but the basic cloths, folds and stitches are encoding a status. The soldiers know this. the hierarchy is going to be defined by the uniform and the cap, the numbers of stars and stripes.

We should stand there naked in front of the mirror and ask who are we? For at least twenty minutes… who are we going to be today? Oh, stand still… don’t evade the reflection of all of you. 

What unfolded at the Security Council on Wednesday is not merely a diplomatic misstep — it is another demonstration of how far the world’s most powerful states have drifted from justice, truth, and responsible leadership.

When the Security Council Cannot Utter the Truth

The world deserves better than this choreography of half-truths and strategic silences. It deserves leaders who act with integrity, not calculation, writes Annette Morgan.

The resolution’s use of the word “unprovoked” is not just inaccurate; it is a deliberate inversion of reality. Iran acted under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter after suffering attacks on its own territory by the United States and Israel — attacks that the resolution pointedly refuses to acknowledge. 

The KGB was reputed to favor a characteristic test to take the measure of a man: Place him in a deliberately trying situation and observe how he responds. The premise was deceptively simple: Under acute pressure even a carefully composed façade would collapse, and true nature would stand revealed.

Prof. Schlevogt’s Compass No. 46: Dirty work by proxy – The ethics of the Kanzler’s outsourced war
Across civilizations, ethics converge: Power without restraint is tyranny. The war on Iran is the latest proof.

Mars is the sternest examiner of would-be statesmen. Although truth is famously said to be war’s first casualty, it nevertheless prevails in one decisive respect: It reveals character.