In April 2024 international news sources circulated a video of a talk delivered by a senior Israeli military official during a tech conference at Tel Aviv University about a year earlier. The speaker, whose face is not shown, introduces himself only as “Colonel Yoav,” the head of data science and AI for Unit 8200, an elite outfit within Israel’s intelligence directorate. He is there to talk about the force’s embrace of artificial intelligence for the purposes of, as one slide in his presentation puts it, “finding new terrorists.”

Moloch, the God of Israel, later called Satan by many, Still a Big Hit

Two weeks before the US’s anniversary, The Associated Press published a poll that captured the depth of American anxiety about the ruling class and life in general in the country. The numbers were grim. More than two-thirds (70%) of Americans no longer consider their country the greatest nation on Earth, while 64% believe American democracy is in danger. And 38% don’t believe the United States will survive another 250 years as a single country.

Almost half of skilled migrants are working below their qualification level, while Australia’s complex recognition system leaves urgently needed teachers, nurses, engineers and tradespeople underused.

There is wasted talent right across the Australian workforce. It is estimated that 44 per cent of Australia’s skilled migrants are employed below their skill level.

John Menadue

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said he is not currently aiming to regain control of Crimea, but suggested the issue could be revisited later.

He made the remarks in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, who asked whether the peninsula, which joined Russia in 2014, was “back on the table” amid Kiev’s refusal to make territorial concessions.

“It’s a pity. No. Or not yet. We will see, I don’t know,” Zelensky replied. He said Crimea remained “very important” to Ukraine but suggested that “not losing people” was the more immediate priority.

I'm launching my own YouTube channel as a platform to expand on topics, issues, and ideas that sometimes get shortchanged during my appearances on other shows or that I have otherwise not addressed on other shows. Future videos will cover:

It’s funny the things that get to you when you’ve been at this for a while. 

Today the thing that smacked me upside the head and made me lay my face in my hands for a minute was a viral video clip of Canadian politician Bill Oliver accidentally reading out text from the AI chatbot which had authored his speech before the New Brunswick legislature.

We’re Being Plunged Into Dystopia When We Could Be Living In Paradise

It’s not just all the war, injustice, ecocide and dystopia that hurts. It’s knowing it didn’t have to be this way. It’s knowing what could have been.

Caitlin Johnstone

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has reshaped life in frontline cities, where economic hardship has pushed some women into sex work. Lyudmila, who entered the trade at 18 after struggling to find employment, says many soldier clients seek conversation and emotional support as well as intimacy. Aid workers warn of rising violence against sex workers, including assault and rape, linked to the pressures of war.

Ukraine: Sex work near the front lines

Australia’s most influential STEM research increasingly depends on collaboration with China, yet excessive security settings risk pushing universities and researchers away from work that serves the public good.

News that the National Science Foundation – the US counterpart to the Australian Research Council (ARC) – has proposed to ban grant recipients from nearly all collaboration with China is bound to send chills down the spines of Australia-based researchers in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) areas.

Multi-day European heat waves with temperatures topping 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) are increasingly leaving their mark on Germany's famed Autobahn — buckling concrete slabs, deforming asphalt and forcing temporary speed limits.

In early July alone, seven stretches of the country's highways had to be shut down completely for a time.

Why is Germany building roads for yesterday's climate?

One Nation’s proposed visa cap and threat to deport students would devastate international education, put tens of thousands of jobs at risk and leave universities facing financial crisis.

Abul Rizvi

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has denounced Europe’s military buildup and escalating confrontation with Russia, arguing that Western governments are steering the world toward catastrophe while arms manufacturers and political elites profit from perpetual war.

Speaking Monday on Rick Sanchez’s The Sanchez Effect, Waters said calls for European NATO members to increase military spending to 5% of national GDP were “effing insane.” He questioned how Western leaders could even contemplate a direct conflict with Russia, given the Soviet Union’s decisive role and immense losses during World War II.

For decades, Americans have been told that rising crime, political polarization, and Donald Trump’s ascent are separate crises requiring separate solutions. 

Political scientist Marie Gottschalk argues they are all symptoms of the same deeper disease: an economic and political system that has steadily expanded punishment for ordinary people while shielding corporations and the wealthy from meaningful accountability. 

Trump Was the Symptom, Corporate Impunity the Disease
July 27, 2026
Much of the political establishment continues to treat Trump’s rise as though it emerged from nowhere, when in reality it was built upon decades of accumulated economic betrayal, writes political scientist Marie Gottschalk.

By Joshua Scheer

ScheerPost

US conservative activist Laura Loomer arrived in Kiev after years of denouncing Ukraine’s “Nazi apologists.” She met Vladimir Zelensky, apologized for articles she had written for RT and said Russian media had “bamboozled” her. 

Nazis and Jews in Ukraine: What Laura Loomer is missing when she believes Zelensky 

Does Zelensky’s Jewish identity settle Ukraine’s neo-Nazi question?

BY The RT newsroom 

By implicitly agreeing with Energy Australia that offsets don’t neutralise fossil fuel emissions, is the government signalling an overhaul of the Safeguard Mechanism? David McEwen reports.

Will the Government now consider phasing down unlimited ACCU (carbon credits) use by Australia’s big emitters?

Late last week, the Albanese Government quietly announced it was retiring the Climate Active scheme – the Commonwealth’s official certification program, which is used by companies to claim their business or product is “carbon neutral”.

The announcement landed without fanfare – in a consultation paper about how the scheme should end – but its implications could be significant.