RALLY FIRED UP
Former prime minister Scott Morrison has accused the United Nations (UN) of anti-Semitism while speaking at a Sydney rally, the SMH reports. He said: “Applying double standards by requiring of … Israel, a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation — that is anti-Semitism. And we have seen that in the United Nations.” The UN’s International Court of Justice said Israel should prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians, The New York Times reported, noting the “extent of the human tragedy” in the region. Morrison apologised to Jewish people in the crowd for the “isolation”, “abandonment”, “persecution”, “threats” and “hatred” they’d felt in Australia. He also said a two-state solution wasn’t possible right now.
It comes as Victorian Senator Ralph Babet posed for a photo with a neo-Nazi who appeared to be giving a Nazi salute, The Age reports. Babet said he didn’t realise because “hundreds” of people a month ask for a photo. Crikey’s Cam Wilson reported last year the United Australia Party senator’s Telegram channel had been gatecrashed by neo-Nazis, with “hate symbols, slurs and recruiting efforts” though Babet didn’t engage. Liberal MP Julian Leeser, who is Jewish, said it was disappointing to see a photo of an “elected parliamentarian with a neo-Nazi”. Leeser was also at the Sydney rally, telling the crowd “Greens parliamentarians think Jews have tentacles” — a reference to NSW Greens MP Jenny Leong’s comments in December that she’s since said sorry for, as Guardian Australia reported.
WHAT AILS US
We’re getting more warships that are more lethal faster than we thought, a surface fleet review that the AFR reports on says. At the moment we have eight ANZAC class frigates and three Hobart class Air Warfare Destroyers, but Beijing is militarising fast and the fleet wouldn’t protect us for long. The review will confirm we’re keeping the $45 billion Hunter-class frigate program in Adelaide, but only ordering six of the anti-submarine ships, not nine, and we’ll be doing continuous naval shipbuilding in SA and WA — probably to “shore up Labor votes,” The Australian ($) says. Speaking of attacks — the Herald Sun reports Brittany Higgins and David Sharaz are reclusive, even speaking to their neighbours in France’s Lunas and learning about a “heated discussion” with a gardener. Yawn. Next.
To more toxic news now and a former senior NSW environment watchdog officer told Guardian Australia the asbestos contamination was “destined to happen”. Former NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) compliance officer Jason Scarborough said both the regulator and industry were aware of the waste recovery issues 10 years ago, and the EPA abandoned a recycled soil product in 2022 because of what the “industry had to say”. Thousands of students are staying home today after asbestos was found in the mulch at two more schools — but EPA boss Tony Chappel said the city was ready to welcome Taylor Swift (there really should be a term for loosely linking unrelated topics to the popstar). Speaking of school closures, the SMH assembled education experts for a panel because the government didn’t look at the effect on students in its independent inquiry. The panel found keeping kids at home led to “an attendance crisis and persistent behavioural issues”.
TAKING A PUTIN
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says Russian President Vladimir Putin is responsible for former Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death, the ABC reports. Albanese said it was an “appalling atrocity” that a “brave man” who stood up for democracy was killed by Putin’s treatment. Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong told her department to call Russia’s ambassador, though she wouldn’t say whether we’d consider more sanctions (we already have a great many, she noted as The Australian ($) reported). Opposition Leader Peter Dutton called Putin a “murderous dictator” and said it was appalling he let his country’s opposition leader be poisoned and incarcerated. It comes as news presenter and former China detainee Cheng Lei wrote to imprisoned Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich urging him to stay strong in Russia’s Lefortovo prison, The Australian ($) reports.
Meanwhile, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange’s probable last shot at freedom begins on Tuesday UK time, SBS News reports, but his wife Stella has lost hope. If the High Court rejects the Australian’s application to stop his extradition to the US, he’s exhausted his legal options in the UK, though the two judges may take months to decide. Assange’s team will likely appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, but the UK might put him on a plane before they can. If Julian goes to the US, Stella said, he’ll be put in a hole so deep she doubts she’ll see him ever again. He could accept a plea deal by admitting guilt (if the US offered one), but what would it mean for the rest of the press? A reminder that Assange is not a US citizen and did not commit alleged crimes on US soil, as a letter signed by several former attorneys-general pointed out to Albanese per SMH. Talk about extra-territorial reach.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
When pint-sized girl Milana Bruno heard that mega-popstar Taylor Swift was coming to Melbourne — her city — she begged her parents to buy her tickets. Her mum Renata obliged, sitting at her computer as the registration opened for the hugely in-demand concert, but they sold out in an instant. Milana was devastated, so Renata resolved to get tickets from a reseller on Facebook instead. It turned out to be a scam, and the hearts of the mother-daughter duo broke a second time. It was a stroke of pure luck, then, that the pair tracked down some last-minute tickets on Tuesday, mere days before Swift would take to the stage at the MCG. Sure, they were seated right at the back, and Milana had to stand on a seat to see, but they’d made it.
But when two stern-looking people appeared and tapped Renata to enquire as to whether Milana was her daughter, the suddenly nervous little girl was sure she was in trouble. Big trouble. Instead, the people asked whether she’d like to meet Swift herself. Next minute, Milana was whisked through the rows and the VIP section to the edge of the stage as her hero bent down to hug her. Thank you for coming, Swift told Milana who was crying her eyes out while expressing her joy and gratitude for the moment. You deserve it, the pop star added, taking her top hat off to give to Milana. There were 96,000 people at the sold-out concert, and only one person got this opportunity to meet Taylor Swift. “And somehow that was me,” an awe-struck Milana told The Age.
Hoping you get a stroke of luck today too.
SAY WHAT?
[Taylor Swift] seizes control of her life, her music, the means of production and the narrative of her love life — good or bad. And there is little more maddening to some people than that
Virginia Trioli
The ABC journalist makes the case that Karl Marx would have loved the Eras tour, or something.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson is facing her first major test as pilots from the Australian Federation of Airline Pilots (AFAP), employed at Qantas’ subsidiaries Network Aviation (NA) and QantasLink in Western Australia, begin an unprecedented six-day strike.
“The federation added three more days to an existing strike on Tuesday night that started at midnight. It’s the second strike in a week, after a one-day stoppage last week that saw 35 flights cancelled; Qantas was also forced to cancel east coast flights to bring in aircraft, and to pay Virgin and other charter operators to step in.”
“One of the few people who does think the company is a buy is Kerry Stokes. His Seven Group Holdings has increased its minority shareholding to above 40% — but not for financial reasons. Seven Group has now written nearly a quarter of a billion dollars off the value of its stake in SWM since 2021-22: $83.4 million in 2021-22, $75.9 million in 2022-23, and the largest of the lot, $90.2 million in the December half of 2023-24.
“The latest impairment sits pretty poorly with all the brave talk from the War Criminals’ Network about the coming turnaround — though Seven Group Holdings’ stake was valued at $167.1 million at the end of December, which values SWM at around $417 million, well above the $350 million the company is capitalised at this week.”
“Victoria Legal Aid lawyers have decried an internal policy order not to discuss ‘the conflict between Israel and Palestine’ at work, with more than 100 VLA staff co-signing a letter to management. Some employees at the firm — a Victorian state government organisation with a headcount of more than 1,000, whose work involves legal representation for disadvantaged communities — have responded strongly to the edict, calling for ‘an end of attempts to silence staff’.
“The staff pushing back have also claimed the ban on discussions of the conflict would pose ‘a real risk of interfering with the carrying out of core workplace duties’.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Arrests after Iran’s iPhone ban paves way for multimillion-dollar scam (Al Jazeera)
WHO says Gaza’s Nasser hospital not functional after Israel raids (BBC)
Trump launches sneaker line a day after judge’s order to pay nearly $355 million (CNN)
Russia takes Avdiivka from Ukraine, biggest gain in nine months (Reuters)
Orbán addresses Hungary in first appearance since country’s president quit in a scandal (euronews)
A stunned Russian opposition in exile considers a future without Navalny (The New York Times) ($)
Vacation in North Korea? Reclusive state reopens to tourism — but only for Russians
(The Wall Street Journal) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
We have seen Assange’s plight in a UK prison, but extraditing him this week would be a disaster for us all — Christophe Deloire and Rebecca Vincent (The Guardian): “Given the high stakes for journalism and press freedom, we have been dismayed to be confronted with extensive barriers to our UK-focused work on Assange’s case. Our prison visits followed months of fighting for access after the prison arbitrarily barred us in April 2023, when we were refused entry for a vetted prison visit on the grounds that the prison had received ‘intelligence’ that we were journalists. As a non-governmental organisation (NGO), our role differs from that of journalists. We sought access to discuss our advocacy efforts directly with Assange rather than to interview him for a media report. Over the next four months, we sought legal advice, submitted subject access requests, secured an intervention by a member of Parliament, and engaged in extensive correspondence with Belmarsh.
“In August 2023, the block on our access was finally lifted, and we became the only NGO that has been able to visit Assange in prison. This is not the first time the British system has created obstacles to our work on Assange’s case. We have experienced extensive and evolving barriers to accessing court hearings as NGO observers, often having no choice but to queue outside for up to five hours, very early in the morning and sometimes in freezing temperatures, to secure one of the few spaces in the public gallery. At one point during the pandemic, we were threatened with arrest simply for queueing to get into court. This absurd series of restrictions meant that RSF was the only NGO to monitor the full proceedings.”
In death, Navalny is even more dangerous to Putin’s lies — Serge Schmemann (The New York Times): “What made Mr. Navalny dangerous was that he broke through the lies. And that could make him an even more potent figure, a martyr. That is a risk to the Kremlin only a month before national elections, which Mr Putin wants to portray as a ringing national endorsement of his rule and his war on Ukraine. Mr Navalny had denounced the invasion of Ukraine from the outset. ‘This is a stupid war which your Putin started,’ he told a court in Moscow. Mr. Putin believed he could stifle opposition to the war by arresting critics or sending them into exile. Many of those opposed to the war were from the urban intelligentsia, not the provincial masses, who are generally more willing to accept the Kremlin’s propaganda, which blames the war on machinations by the United States or supposed threats by Ukraine.
“Mr Navalny spoke to resentments among ordinary Russians. His primary target was corruption, especially the self-enrichment of Mr. Putin and his cronies. He used folksiness, humour and courage, alongside an organisation that produced a stream of slick, entertaining videos. In one of them, made to prove that the Kremlin was behind his poisoning, Mr Navalny reportedly impersonates a Russian security official to elicit information — a remarkable feat of investigative journalism in a police state. The videos about the palace built for Mr Putin and the extravagant country estate of the former president Dmitry Medvedev were seen by millions. His condemnation of the ruling United Russia party as a ‘party of crooks and thieves’ became an indelible slogan.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)
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Former Thai prison inmate Holly Deane-Johns will talk about her book, Holly’s Hell, at Better Read Than Dead bookshop.
