The US Navy and Australia need new diesel-electric submarines. Just don’t try to tell the conflicted American admirals who have been guiding our AUKUS disaster, reports Michael Pascoe.

Australia’s deal with France to acquire diesel-electric submarines was (in)famously scuppered by Scott Morrison in June 2021 and replaced by the present AUKUS deal. The headline is about a senior American naval strategist campaigning for the US to start building or buying diesel-electric submarines. I’ll come back to that.

Wrong subs? US Admirals’ groupthink running Australia aground

Just as important for Australia, though, is his nailing of American admirals’ groupthink when it comes to subs. It’s groupthink that has weakened America’s silent service and is steering Australia’s maritime defence aground.

The German parliament's budget committee has signed off on the budget presented by Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD). The exploding cost of Germany's welfare system is putting pressure on the state coffers — along with the billions of euros needed to rearm the Bundeswehr and continue support for Ukraine in its war of self defense against Russia.

German government agrees on record debt for 2026

As Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert undergo the slings and arrows of outrageous censorship, a timely new documentary chronicles a sketching scourge of the status quo who skewered the powers that be, lampooning politicians, oligarchs and other tyrannical targets with a pen wielded like a harpoon.

A Savage Art: The Life & Cartoons of Pat Oliphant takes a look at the Pulitzer Prize-winning artist who used the First Amendment via the visual medium of the single panel political cartoon to express sharp commentary in graphic form for about half a century, from LBJ to Trump, providing as one interviewee puts it, “a throughline to the insanity of America.”

The Netherlands once again finds itself at a political crossroads. After years of turbulence and ideological fragmentation, the liberal-centrist party D66 (Democraten 66), led by Rob Jetten, scored a narrow yet striking victory compared with the previous election, rising from nine seats in 2023 to twenty-six in the 2025 snap election.

As Geert Wilders’ Far Right Stumbles, Can Rob Jetten’s Progressive Liberals Rebuild the Dutch Centre?

Ricardo Martins

I send you greetings of Peace and Good, so desperately needed by humanity and by those living in poverty, conflict, war and hunger. This open letter is meant to express and share some thoughts with you.
  I was surprised by your designation as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate by the Nobel Committee. It reminded me of the struggles against dictatorships on the continent and in my country, military dictatorships we endured from 1976 to 1983. We withstood prisons, torture and exile, with thousands disappeared people, kidnapped and missing children, and the death flights of which I am a survivor.

“Do not forget, Corina …”

Open letter from Nobel Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel* to Corina Machado

The Russian Foreign Ministry has ridiculed the German government’s pleas to Kiev to keep fighting-age Ukrainian men at home.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Thursday he discussed Ukraine’s manpower problems with Vladimir Zelensky, asking him to “ensure that young men in particular from Ukraine do not come to Germany in large numbers.” Berlin also intends to downgrade the support for Ukrainian nationals granted protection in the country to that of regular asylum-seekers.

The toxic roots of China-phobia are deeply embedded in modern Australia’s cultural history. It has a firm grip on the minds of many of Australia’s policy wonks, politicians, media commentators, and the general public.

Today it is being fanned by security hawks in the foreign policy domain who are desperately committed to the quixotic (mis)alliance with the US.

Allan Patience

The Castle remains good law in Australia. Almost three decades since the battling suburban solicitor Dennis Denuto introduced us all to the high legal concept of “the vibe of the thing”, the High Court has broadly endorsed the classic movie’s basic contention: a man’s home is his castle.

 Andrew Fraser

And, our highest court says, that applies even if the home hasn’t been built yet and when the man is not cuddly Darryl Kerrigan of screen fame but the highly unfashionable litigant Vladimir Putin.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has denounced the US strikes on alleged cartel vessels in the Caribbean Sea as the Pentagon announced a new operation to fight drug traffickers.

In an interview with NBC News, Petro did not mince words when criticizing US President Donald Trump. “He’s a barbarian,” Petro said in excerpts aired Thursday. “He wants to frighten us,” he added.

The Colombian president did not rule out that some of the vessels hit by the strikes were linked to cartels. “Maybe or maybe not. We do not know,” he said, adding that, “According to due process, the civilized treatment of people, they should be seized and detained.”

"I know that you know, but you’ll never be able to prove it,” Graham Richardson once said to me more than 20 years ago, back when we were still talking.

For a reporter whose career has been spent uncovering crime and corruption, Richo was the one who got away.

Long lunches, Swiss bank accounts and a kangaroo scrotum: My decades pursuing Graham Richardson

By Kate McClymont

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says the Liberals have the "memory of goldfish and diet of piranhas" after dumping net zero by 2050.

Opposition Leader Sussan Ley was also up on ABC News Breakfast this morning where she's been asked if dumping net zero could damage Australia's global reputation.

The opposition leader has brushed aside that question and says the Liberal Party is proposing to remain in the Paris Agreement.

Ley says Labor's climate targets are unachievable because Australia is cutting emissions twice as fast as the developed world.

Ukraine corruption scandal puts top figures under scrutiny

The corruption scandal is fast becoming Ukraine's most significant government crisis since Russia's invasion in 2022.

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Germany news: Police search AfD politician's property

Prosecutors in Thuringia said police searched three properties but were not seeking an arrest. DW has more.

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US to designate Germany's 'Antifa Ost' a terrorist group

On her first day of work, Adau realised she had made a big mistake.

"We got our uniforms, not even knowing exactly what we were going to do. From the first day of work we were taken to the drones factory. We stepped in and we saw drones everywhere and people working. Then they took us to our different work stations."

Twenty-three-years-old and originally from South Sudan, Adau says last year she was lured to the Alabuga Special Economic Zone in the Republic of Tatarstan in Russia, on the promise of a full-time job.

She had applied to the Alabuga Start programme, a recruitment scheme targeting 18-to-22-year-old women, mostly from Africa but also increasingly from Latin America and South-East Asia. It promises participants professional training in areas including logistics, catering and hospitality.