HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY
Leaders from around the world have joined with Auschwitz survivors to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Germany death camp.
Reuters says the ceremony has been seen as “one of the last such gatherings of those who experienced its horrors”. 86-year-old Tova Friedman, who was six when she was among the 7,000 people liberated by Soviet troops on January 27, 1945, told the Associated Press she also believed it would be the last gathering of Auschwitz survivors.
Having travelled from her home in New Jersey to Poland this week, she told the newswire: “The world has become toxic. I realise that we’re in a crisis again, that there is so much hatred around, so much distrust, that if we don’t stop, it may get worse and worse. There may be another terrible destruction.”
The BBC reports the ceremony included “graphic accounts of what the survivors endured, followed by appeals for tolerance and combating antisemitism”. The broadcaster said German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, French President Emmanuel Macron and King Charles III “made passionate statements” but “the words echoing in the shadow of Birkenau’s Death Gate belong to the dwindling number of survivors”.
The ceremony ended with survivors and world leaders lighting candles at the empty wooden train car, which sits on the tracks at Auschwitz.
Yesterday Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese attended a Holocaust memorial service at JHUB Maccabi Community Centre in Perth and pledged $4.4 million to build a national Holocaust education centre in Canberra, as well as $2 million to upgrade the Holocaust Education Centre in Western Australia.
The PM said in a statement: “On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, we hold on to the memories of millions. We reflect on the great multitude of Jewish life that the Holocaust robbed from the world — all of that energy, potential, inspiration, talent and love — and we hold their names and their faces in our hearts. We tend to these memories because we cannot allow the Holocaust to recede into history. It was a pitiless and unrelenting act of cruelty that was long in the planning, cold in its calculation, and carried out on a scale that falls across the decades like a terrible shadow.”
The ABC reported ahead of the ceremony that Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong, who was at the Auschwitz ceremony, said: “We are here to say, never again. I would say at this time, we have to stand together across beliefs, across political difference, across politics, we have to stand against prejudice and hate and antisemitism in all its forms. When we say never again we have to not only mean it, but bring that to what we do as political leaders.”
Guardian Australia and many others picked up Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, who is also in Poland, responding to a question about Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s criticism of Wong attending the ceremony. Dreyfus said it was “grotesque to see attempts being made to politicise either commemoration of the Holocaust or combating antisemitism. We need to get politics out of this.”
Dutton said in a statement marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day: “Today we remember the six million Jews whose lives were exterminated by the Nazis in an act so calculated and cruel it constitutes one of the most monstrous crimes in human history.”
He added: “In the magnitude of antisemitism which is plaguing Western democracies today — including Australia — many citizens who have read about the history and horrors of the Holocaust have, for the first time, grasped how that catastrophe eventuated. They have seen, with their own eyes, a type of hate that, if left unchecked, unleashes greater evils.”
The Coalition leader said if elected his government would aim for every schoolchild to visit a Holocaust museum as well as provide “$19 million to Australian Holocaust museums to support their expansion and to commemorate the victims of Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023”.
The ceasefire between Hamas and Israel is now in its second week and Monday saw hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians return to their homes — or the ruins where their homes once stood — in northern Gaza, the BBC reports.
The Guardian says thousands crossed the border on Monday morning after Israel “opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year”.
The AFP news agency reports a Gaza security official claimed “more than 200,000 displaced people have returned to Gaza and North Gaza” in the first two hours of Monday. The newswire also reports the Israeli government has said eight of the hostages held in Gaza due for release in the first phase of the ceasefire deal are dead.
DEEPSEEK WREAKING HAVOC
So, hands up if you’ve heard of the Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek?
You certainly will have by the end of this morning. The low-cost app has caused all kinds of havoc on Wall Street in recent hours, with shares in major US technology firms falling steeply in value after the sudden emergence of DeepSeek.
The BBC says the app, which was launched last week, has overtaken rivals including ChatGPT to become the most downloaded free app in the US. The initial impact on the markets made headlines around the world as “investors made a quick exit from several big-name tech stocks”, as the British broadcaster puts it.
For example, AI chip maker Nvidia saw its share price drop 16%, wiping $500 billion off its value, on Monday.
CNN says DeepSeek’s “surprise advancement” has “threatened the aura of invincibility surrounding America’s technology industry”. (You’ll remember US President Donald Trump announced to much fanfare his $500 billion Stargate AI project last Tuesday, the day before DeepSeek released its open-source model.)
The US broadcaster provides a handy summary of why DeepSeek has caused such a scene: “DeepSeek, a one-year-old startup, revealed a stunning capability last week: It presented a ChatGPT-like AI model called R1, which has all the familiar abilities, operating at a fraction of the cost of OpenAI’s, Google’s or Meta’s popular AI models. The company said it had spent just $5.6 million on computing power for its base model, compared with the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars US companies spend on their AI technologies,” CNN said. WIRED also also a very handy explainer here.
Many publications have picked up on tech investor Marc Andreessen declaring on X: “Deepseek R1 is one of the most amazing and impressive breakthroughs I’ve ever seen.”
Fortune highlights Andreessen also said: “DeepSeek-R1 is AI’s Sputnik moment”. Meanwhile, WIRED also reports the company said on Monday it was temporarily limiting new sign-ups due to “large-scale malicious attacks” on its services.
As the market continues to watch what is happening to US tech stock, domestically all eyes are set to be on the December quarter inflation rate when the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the data at 11.30am AEDT tomorrow. The ABC states the “nation’s economists, bankers and mortgagees [will be] clustered, agog, around their screens” for the figures. The broadcaster has an interesting analysis piece on why it’s not as simple as, “if the Wednesday figures are low the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut interest rates next month”. You can read it here.
It won’t just be the economists and market traders gathered around their screens for the inflation stats, you can be sure politicians will be as well, ready to spin the results in the direction they need.
Talking of waiting for something to happen. Does anyone know when Trump is going to get around to ringing Albanese in an official capacity now he’s US president? The 78-year-old is certainly making his way down the list of other world leaders…
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Another day, another headline for Elon Musk. But this one is a bit different to the rest.
USA Today reports that on January 2 the Minor Planet Center announced the discovery of a new asteroid, complete with an official name: 2018 CN41.
Unfortunately, less than 17 hours later the asteroid was deleted from the organisation’s record and an editorial note issued stating “it was pointed out the orbit matches an artificial object 2018-017A, Falcon Heavy Upper stage with the Tesla roadster”.
That’s right, the object was not an asteroid, it was in fact the Tesla car Musk blasted into space on a Space X Falcon rocket in 2018.
Astronomy reports the asteroid/car had first been “identified” and submitted by a citizen scientist. The site adds: “The case of mistaken identity was resolved swiftly in a collaboration between professional and amateur astronomers. But some astronomers say it is also emblematic of a growing issue: the lack of transparency from nations and companies operating craft in deep space, beyond the orbits used by most satellites.”
(While we’re here, please feel free to keep sending me feedback, things you’d like to see more/less of in the Worm and any tips you may have to worm@crikey.com.au.)
Say What?
I want debate to be respectful… and that’s a choice that she made. People are allowed to express themselves, but I thought it was disrespectful of the event and of the people who that event was primarily for.
Anthony Albanese
The prime minister was yesterday asked about former Australian of the Year Grace Tame wearing a T-shirt with “Fuck Murdoch” written on its front during a reception at The Lodge at the weekend. Asked if he agreed with the t-shirt’s sentiment, Albanese said: “I clearly disagree.” Tame meanwhile declared: “It’s a great shirt and says it all, doesn’t it?”
CRIKEY RECAP
Changing the date alone will not erase the scars of colonisation, but it is a powerful gesture of Australia’s willingness to listen, learn, and take action towards reconciliation. It is a call for all Australians to walk together on a path of truth-telling and healing. Only then can we move to honour the past.
Let’s create celebrations that unite, rather than exclude people; celebrations where everyone can feel welcome, whether their family has called Australia home for five years or 50,000 years. By shifting the focus of Australia Day, we can create a nation that celebrates not just its achievements but its capacity for growth and understanding.
January 26 may always carry its historical weight, but our future as a unified nation requires that we honour it with the respect and reflection it deserves — by changing the date we celebrate.
Managing but not governing. In charge but not in power. Deciding but not leading.
That was the prime minister on display at Friday’s National Press Club address — unveiling another managerial tweak to the economy, denouncing his opponent, and promising voters more of the same that they’ve been given over the past two-and-a-half years.
Business as usual isn’t going to cut it. The drift in Labor’s support has been happening for 18 months, to the point where it’s impossible to see the government retaining its majority. But there are weeks, and likely months, until the election. Don’t think that drift can’t continue to the point where a Dutton government, even a majority government, becomes odds-on.
Peter Dutton leads a pack of duds, and his policies — where he has them — are an embarrassing confection of innumeracy and MAGA Down Under cut-and-pastes. Labor should be setting itself up for an extended period in government. Instead, Anthony Albanese is quietly leading it to defeat.
Since last year’s council nomination fiasco, the NSW Liberal division has been under federal takeover, a move aimed at ensuring candidate selection for the upcoming federal election goes smoothly.
But with a handful of Sydney seats still without candidates, some in the party worry the takeover committee hasn’t solved the party’s admin challenges.
“The impression is that everything was going to be fixed by [the federal takeover] — but are we any better off than we were a year ago?” a Liberal source told Crikey.
The NSW seats where the Liberals lack candidates are the Western Sydney electorates of Blaxland, Chifley, McMahon, Watson and Fowler, as well as the inner-city seat of Sydney.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
How the Mafia is weaponising wildfires (CNN)
‘Declaration of war’: M23 rebels claim seizing key DR Congo city of Goma (al-Jazeera)
Two hundred UK companies sign up for permanent four-day working week (The Guardian)
Elon Musk, video game king? Well, maybe not (The New York Times) ($)
Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon ‘disrupter,’ vows swift action (The Washington Post)
New Zealand eases visa rules for ‘digital nomads’ to boost tourism (BBC)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Neale Daniher’s worthy recognition is a unique opportunity to change the conversation about the NDIS — George Taleporos (Guardian Australia): What I hope will come from Daniher’s recognition goes beyond this. I hope to see a shift in the national dialogue around the NDIS. The NDIS is a lifeline for countless Australians such as Daniher, living with complex disabilities, providing the means for us to live with dignity, independence and control over our lives. Whether it’s through funding for personal care, wheelchairs, therapies, or other supports, the NDIS empowers individuals to live as active members of society.
Yet, despite its transformative impact, the national dialogue around the NDIS has become alarmingly negative. Media headlines are dominated by stories of cost blowouts, fraud and inefficiencies, overshadowing the real stories of lives changed and opportunities created. This persistent focus on the scheme’s financial cost has contributed to a public discourse that too often portrays people with disabilities as financial burdens and the NDIS as an unnecessary and out-of-control strain on taxpayers and our economy.
Australia must face down US tech bosses and Trump – Paul Smith (AFR): Regardless of whether you agree with the media bargaining or social media age limit policies, scrapping them to pre-emptively appease Trump would be a horrible show of weakness. If a foreign country (and supposed ally) wants to make it uneconomical for Australians to live there, then perhaps it is no longer a country they should be living in.
If a policy of going hard to hold tech companies like Meta and Google to account was right when Joe Biden was president — and both sides of Australian politics thought it was — then it is still right today.
