In finalising his cabinet, Donald Trump has come to resemble an American Caligula, the Roman emperor rumoured to have considered appointing his beloved stallion as consul. So unorthodox have been the president-elect’s appointments that I half expected him to nominate his golf cart as the new transportation secretary.

BY Nick Bryant

Social media company Meta has accused the Australian government of rushing to introduce an under-16 social media ban without properly considering the evidence and voices of young people.

But Australian politicians who supported the world-first legislation argue it is necessary to ensure another generation of teenagers do not experience “as much damaging content” in years to come.

Thousands of Volkswagen workers in Germany went on strike on Monday after the company announced plans to close three plants and slash pensions. 

"Warning strikes will begin Monday in all plants," said Thorsten Gröger, who is leading the union negotiations with German auto giant.

"If necessary, this will be the toughest wage dispute Volkswagen has ever seen."

Tens of thousands of employees with the IG Metall union stopped work at 9:30 a.m. The strike is set to last two hours, a process which will be repeated by the late shift.

Joe Biden delivers ‘tremendous favour’ to Donald Trump with Hunter Biden pardon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlooGkT2fMU

US President Joe Biden has done a “tremendous favour” for President-elect Donald Trump by pardoning Hunter Biden, claims United States Studies Centre’s Dr Harry Melkonian.

“It takes this whole Hunter Biden situation off the table, it’s a piece of controversy the new president will not have to deal with because the pardon is an unconditional and absolute constitutional act of President Biden,” Dr Melkonian told Sky News Australia.

“Secondly, President-elect Trump who’s had his own share of legal problems and has been able to avoid anything like a sentencing, and has been criticised; this will certainly deflect attention on him.”

We stand at a critical juncture in human history, where the decisions we make today will determine whether humanity continues to exist—or falls to the inevitability of its own hubris. Nuclear annihilation, environmental collapse, and societal breakdown are not looming threats but present realities. These crises are the culmination of centuries of systems and values built not for human flourishing but for domination, consumption, and despair.

Ukrainians who have died in the conflict between Moscow and Kiev “have already won,” Vladimir Zelensky claimed in an interview with Sky News released this week. Those sacrifices enabled Kiev to secure aid from its Western backers and eventually prevent Moscow from achieving its goals, according to the Ukrainian leader.

When asked by Sky News chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay if he believed that those Ukrainians who had died throughout the conflict had given their lives for nothing, Zelensky said “it was wrong” to think so. “They are already winners,” he added.

Social media companies on Friday criticized Australia's decision to ban them from allowing children under 16 to use their platforms, saying the move has left "many unanswered questions."

The law, passed by Australian lawmakers on Thursday, will make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (€30.5 million, $32 million) if they fail to prevent children younger than 16 from holding accounts.

In the span of one week, a cargo plane belonging to German logistics company DHL crashed in Lithuania, two underwater data cables were damaged in the Baltic Sea, and pro-Russian right-wing extremist Calin Georgescu surprisingly won the first round of Romania's presidential election.

US President-elect Donald Trump has picked a former aide, Kash Patel, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation, an agency Patel has often criticised.

A former US defence department chief of staff in the first Trump administration, Patel has been a steadfast supporter of the incoming Republican president.

For Patel to take the job, the current FBI director Christopher Wray would need to resign or be fired - although Trump did not call on him to do so in his post.

Separately, Trump said he plans to nominate Chad Chronister, sheriff of Florida's Hillsborough County, as head of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Unfortunately the Australian Friends of Palestine Association’s campaign to ensure that an Israeli team is not registered for any events in the International Cycling World Tour 2025 and especially in the South Australian Santos Tour Down Under has not met with success.

“Our [Western] media’s role is not to be a check on power, it’s to regurgitate their lies.” This system of reporting is “mood music to get their genocide done” says Journalist Matt Kennard from the Middle East Eye. 

It’s weird to me that the bloke who undertook to build a national environmental protection agency for all Australians on the eve of the last federal election just blew it all up. Labor was so close – this close! – to securing a deal with the Greens to establish Environment Protection Australia and a new data body called Environment Information Australia. And then, bam, Anthony Albanese kiboshed the whole deal.

In the words of one insider, “He wets the bed so easily and regularly. It seems like we were on the brink of securing it all – we had secured it all. And he’s just gone, ‘Nope’.”

Many of my American FRIENDS are at a loss. They grieve the election result by not understanding how ANY AMERICANS could vote for Donald Trump… Not only this, they also are dismayed at the REPUBLICAN (TRUMP’S) picks for the official duties of running America… They had so much hope in the WOMAN of COLOR !!! And so should everyone else have had ! So… THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND !

THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND !   

BY GUS LEONISKY

I could try to explain in situ but I would get pilloried, possibly murdered, for TRYING to make them understand… UNDERSTANDING THE RESULT would legitimise DONALD TRUMP AS PRESIDENT…  a fact they cannot accept… so I nod and keep my trap shut, otherwise they would believe that I support TRUMP, of all horrors…

The ragtag Yemeni militia’s self-imposed partial blockade of Red Sea waters to Israeli, US and ‘Israeli-linked’ commercial shipping over the past year has humbled Israel’s powerful American allies, with Western warship deployments and attempts to “degrade” the militia’s capabilities proving fruitless to date.

The US military is “locked in a dangerous stalemate” in its campaign against the Houthis, proving “unable to effectively stop the rebels from attacking ships,” and at the same time “unlikely” to be given a free hand for all-out war against the group, a top mainstream US business publication has suggested.

The BRICS nations will be hit with 100% tariffs on their goods if they try to introduce a reserve currency to rival the dollar, US President-elect Donald Trump has warned. Trump has repeatedly threatened to use tariffs to achieve his geopolitical goals.

”The idea that the BRICS Countries are trying to move away from the Dollar while we stand by and watch is OVER,”Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.

Trump went on to say that he would ask the BRICS nations to promise not to create a common currency, “nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar,” or they will face 100% tariffs.

”They can go find another ‘sucker!’” he continued. “There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the US Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America.”