The Australian Financial Review’s editorial cartoonist David Rowe has won the Australian Cartoonists Association’s Gold Stanley for best cartoonist of the year for a record-extending 11th time.

Rowe was also awarded the Bronze Stanley award for best caricaturist at the association’s 41st Annual Stan Cross Awards, held in Hobart on Saturday night. It was the 15th time Rowe had taken out the award.

It is Rowe’s third consecutive Gold Stanley, an award he first won in 2002.

The price of partnership with the United States has changed. Washington is now using  assurances of defence and trade access to pressure allies in Europe and Asia to buy more of its fossil fuels under decades-long contracts.

Christoph Nedopil

English: This cartoon depicts a representation of Rudyard Kipling's famous poem The White Man's Burden. Originally published in February, 1899 the poem's philosophy quickly developed as the United States response to annexation of the Philippines. The United States used the "white man's burden" as an argument for imperial control of the Philippines and Cuba on the basis of moral necessity. It was now the United States' moral duty to develop and modernize the conquest lands in order to help carry the foreign barbarians to civilization.

A senior Pentagon spokesperson has responded with a “your mom” joke when asked about US War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s choice of tie for a recent meeting with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky.   

Hegseth opted for a white, blue, and red striped tie during Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Friday.

While the colors are also found in US national symbolism, media outlets noted that the arrangement of the stripes on Hegseth’s garment mirrored that of the Russian flag. Other members of the US administration, including President Donald Trump, wore solid-colored ties for the meeting. 

Visit many areas of state forest in parts of Victoria and you might get a shock – the forest isn’t there.

It used to be there — logged four, five, six or ten years ago — and once stood as tall, straight trees, sometimes more than 50 metres high. Now, no longer. The forest has failed to regenerate after being logged by former Victorian Government agency, VicForests.

Chris Taylor,  David Lindenmayer

Paenitentia, Solitudo et Silentium

"The universe contracted; at its exact geometric center floated that sandy tidbit of dark bread and pale cheese.*"

While Fukuyama lauded "the End of History", it should be obvious to anyone who turn stones upside down to seek cool sand in a furnaced desert, that history never ends, appears cyclical though it evolves from single cells to monkeys and humans who resent their unfinished nature in search of blessed documents. 

Former Trump national security advisor John Bolton has been indicted in Maryland on 18 federal counts of violating the Espionage Act, which is kind of poetic for a guy who’s spent a career demanding that everyone else get indicted for leaking things.

Bolton pleaded not guilty and will now enjoy the same due process that he’s long tried to deny whistleblowers, journalists, and the occasional sovereign nation.

John Bolton bombs himself in a blaze of poetic justice
The man who was so eager to destroy whistleblowers faces prison for leaking classified intel

BY Rachel Marsden

The EU is doing everything in its power to undermine the upcoming summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said. 

Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told TASS on Monday that the bloc is carrying out “active subversive actions” ahead of the planned meeting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest.

Her comments followed a report by Spanish outlet El Pais, which said Brussels viewed the talks as “a political nightmare.” Citing diplomatic sources, the newspaper reported that the summit put the EU “in an awkward and unpleasant position” because Putin and Trump would discuss a potential settlement to the Ukraine conflict in an EU country without the bloc’s participation.

In the workshops of the Ruhr, where the fire of blast furnaces was once considered Europe’s eternal companion, today reigns a cold more expensive than any raw material. An economic pause has descended in icy silence. A tombstone rests on the grave of industrial greatness, signed by Europe’s own leaders.

Europe’s Economic Winter Transfers the Workshop of the World to Asia’s New Furnaces

Rebecca Chan

European capitals increasingly resemble branch offices of an American headquarters. Decisions on industrial policy have long turned into ritual acts of loyalty rather than independent steps.

Whether it’s the Israeli Government, an international peacekeeping force, or a post-conflict reconstruction authority for Gaza chaired (grotesquely) by Donald Trump, the fate of Palestine still rests in the hands of outsiders.

John Feffer

The Gaza, the one that existed on the morning of October 7 is gone, decimated by months of saturation bombing, shelling, bulldozing and controlled demolitions. All that was familiar when I worked in Gaza has vanished, transformed into an apocalyptic landscape of shattered concrete and rubble. 

Requiem for Gaza

By Chris Hedges

US President Donald Trump has mocked the ‘No Kings’ protests, sharing several AI-generated videos on Truth Social, including footage of himself dumping what appears to be feces on the crowds.

A wave of protests against the Trump administration hit the US on Saturday, with massive demonstrations held at more than 2,500 locations across the country.

Protesters accuse the president of abusing his power and undermining democracy, as well as condemning his crackdown on illegal immigrants and deploying the military to American cities on the pretext of fighting rampant crime.

Trump responded by sharing AI-generated videos on social media, including footage originally posted by Xerias, a prolific pro-Trump X account that creates AI-generated meme content.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has urged European leaders to hatch a peace plan for Ukraine “along the lines”of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza scheme, Axios has reported, citing sources.

Starmer made the remarks during a phone call with Vladimir Zelensky and a handful of EU leaders held following the Ukrainian leader’s meeting with Trump in Washington on Friday. European leaders should work with the US “to draft peace for Ukraine along the lines” of Trump’s 20-point plan for Gaza, Starmer reportedly said during the conversation.

I know a few people in Europe who deliberately ignore the events that are shaping the future. They also ignore the historical origins of these events… For these lucky people, the future is inked in what we decide to do and to be, without the “big picture”. Be nice to other people, do not rock the boat and enjoy the sun while on holiday. It works.

The small group of friends in which we can share meals and wine is enough to take us to the end of our happy life. 

Is this intended dismissal of the past a blessing? Is the “burden of neo-history” too much for some? Are we taking too much or too little out of our neo-democratic systems?

I say neo-democratic system as more often than not, our democratic ideals are distorted by many factors:

— disinformation 

— manipulations of voting system

— secret undercurrents

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has urged nations not to impose tariffs, following US President Donald Trump’s latest measures

Speaking at a press briefing on Thursday, Georgieva said, “the largest economy in the world has chosen to use tariffs as an instrument in relations with partners.”

The IMF chief urged nations to adhere to “trade on the most favored nation rule,” adding that imposing tariffs “does not work well” unless the nation has a “very large” and “relatively closed”economy. She warned that nations which place tariffs on others will see prices rise domestically.