Great news that Australia & PNG are now formal allies. Our only other two formal alliances are with the US & NZ. theconversation.com/defence-trea...

Very wise.

Rules of engagement is part of what determines who is the good guy & who is the bad guy. Throw this away, and you risk becoming the enemy of every civilised place instead of the ally.

We haven’t even begun legislating to deal with the threat of having CCP surveillance stations covering our entire country. Ironically, the CCP has excellent regulations about this that we should copy. Their paranoia is quite reliable. www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

Trump trying to shakedown Taiwan to steal their industry… if Taiwan somehow transfers its industry to the US, he’ll 100% support the One China Policy as a deal for soy bean imports that never happen arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Looks like Trump & Colby aren’t planning to derail AUKUS. Good news in my view since it’s a major investment in avoiding war. www.smh.com.au/world/north-...

As Trump is eager to strike an economic accord with China in the coming year, Xi Jinping is planning to press his American counterpart to formally state that the U.S. “opposes” Taiwan’s independence www.wsj.com/world/china/...

Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action UN web TV: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1v...

This is extremely cool. An Aussie scientist won an international ‘environmental peace prize’ for a technique that turned enormous chunks of the Sahara desert into farmland & forest. 50% of Niger turned from dust to life. 40 years of amazing work. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

First time I've ever agreed with Adam Creighton? We deserve a Royal Commission into the Covid response. Of course, he's totally wrong about what was wrong with the response & its aftermath, but that can be proven during the Commission

Literally the authoritarian playbook: 1. Call your opponents terrorists. 2. Deploy state power against them. There's nothing subtle or confusing or complex about what's happening. The *outcome* is uncertain but the authoritarianism is right out in the open.

Let’s spell this out. Trump fired a qualified U.S. attorney who refused to do his bidding and installed his own personal lawyer to punish a perceived opponent. Justice needs to follow the law, not politics. This is an attack on the rule of law. Full stop.

“I don’t want my democracy to be driven by an algorithm,” says 🇫🇷 French President Emmanuel Macron, making the case for social media regulation. Macron was delivering a speech after receiving the 2025 Atlantic Council Global Citizen Award tonight in New York City. #GCA2025 #ACAwards

I must be the only Australian who hasn’t seen a gambling ad in the last 5 years. Of course, I don’t think I’ve seen an ad for anything at all except maybe street-level billboards that I ignore.

This surely must rank amongst the most insane things he’s ever said, right? Also amongst the most insane things that anyone ever said at the UNGA (I hope!) www.smh.com.au/world/north-...

Europe is in a culture war with Trump’s America. It doesn’t have to be this way. A decade of crises has strengthened European sentiment among the public, writes @pawelzerka.bsky.social @ecfrpower.bsky.social @euroculture.bsky.social https://bit.ly/3VxF9X7

The Cultural Revolution vibes are getting extremely thick

Lemme spell it out. Trump's only leverage over Jimmy Kimmel and ABC came from FCC regulation. His direct power over H1-B visas gives him similar leverage over tech, higher ed, and others.

www.asahi.com/ajw/articles...

Farmers have the most to lose from climate change and the National Party betrays them.

I kind of love that our climate strategy is officially described as “maximum possible effort”

When your visa policy has nothing to do with immigration & everything to do with becoming a dictatorship.

British aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales has defied Chinese warnings of “provocation” and upheld international navigation rights in the South China Sea. ukdefencejournal.org.uk/british-carr...

We know what’s necessary & we know what’s possible. There’s a gap. It’s not that it’s impossible, but the technology doesn’t exist yet, so it’s impossible to rely on. It’s a gamble, so we need to stack the deck as much as possible. www.smh.com.au/environment/...

Amazing that this has been on the news for most of the last hour and so far no one I’ve seen has said when this happened or for how long? www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

huh. I've often heard people speculate that this is how Zebras evolved with stripes but I never heard anyone suggest adding stripes to other animals before. english.kyodonews.net/articles/-/6...

Looks like a bunch of US state governors are having to clean up after the mess made by Trump's ICE goons www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/com...

Trump confirms Albo meeting, says public journalism on the agenda #auspol 😋

workforus.theguardian.com/jobs/855/ I was delighted to announce this week that @tommcilroy.bsky.social has been appointed as @australia.theguardian.com political editor, That means we are looking for a chief political correspondent to join our Canberra team.

Suspect some of these results willcome as a shock to many on social media. Especially 58% support/accept AUKUS (18% opposed). Also that only 29% support Aus's recognition of a Palestinian state www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

I’m absolutely loving the SMH’s new policy of using links to documents that it’s reporting on. Revolutionary! www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

This is an excellent example of why air safety is the biggest productivity issue we face.

The murder of Charlie Kirk is part of a disturbing rise in political violence that threatens to hollow out our public life. A free society relies on the premise that people can speak out without fear or humiliation. No more political violence.

#ChinaSky, have we always translated 内卷 as ‘involution’? Pleco has it, but my English dictionary doesn’t give involution the equivalent meaning. I’m wondering if I need a new dictionary or if this is just very new #sinology

This would be fantastic. It would make PNG Australia’s third formal treaty ally, along with New Zealand & the US #auspol www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

Charlie Kirk’s is at least the fourth (!) assassination in the US in a year This is how civil wars start Shooting people is just not an ok way of resolving problems. Even if they spent their life saying it is www.nytimes.com/live/2025/09...

My sense that Elon’s $1 trillion payout was insane even for this timeline turned out to be more correct than I realised, in that it isn’t what’s actually happening. He has stock options he can realise if Tesla’s value hits $8.5 trillion. The options would then be worth $1T

This is probably the biggest productivity freebie there is 👇

Sussan Ley says she wants Australians to be less dependent on government. In that case, we need far stronger unions so we can rebuild the middle class & end the culture of billionaires. #auspol

Has any other company in history ever given TWO THIRDS of its total market value as a single-year payment to its CEO? #econsky #auspol

I thought it sounded familiar. Perhaps the biggest lesson of the pandemic (apart from the need to mitigate airborne transmission of respiratory infections) is that there’s almost no amount that you can spend on prevention (for everyone everywhere) that is too much. www.smh.com.au/national/spe...

How can shareholders possibly justify paying an absentee CEO 2/3rds of their entire market cap in a year that the company value fell 25% #Tesla apple.news/AMax5EoqUTCG...

You can’t fix this without enforced real-time police finance transparency. My preferred way is to have all donations go through the AEC & let them declare it before the parties even get it. #auspol www.smh.com.au/national/i-m...

Very cool Sand batteries probably mean no worries about recycling (or CCP control over supply chains & software updates). They look extremely suitable for Australia.

Essential reporting from Peter Hartcher #auspol (Incredibly, his article has links that aren’t all to the SMH. I’m amazed that a newspaper has discovered this technology) www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

They're now saying it out loud: The Administration's goal is to undo the political independence that Congress granted the Fed, so that the President can directly set rates.

‘Scientists have warned previously that Amoc collapse must be avoided “at all costs”.’

This isn’t even pretending not to be a dictator

Good. The EU should not do what the US has done (indulge Trump’s insane tyrant). They should outright reject it, refuse to comply, make the consequences clear, then stick to them.