WHAT NOW FOR SYRIA?
The rebels who ousted former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad at the weekend have begun asserting control over the country as questions remain over Syria’s future.
Reuters reports the main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, has met Prime Minister Mohammad Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss arrangements for a transitional government.
The newswire says Jalali told Sky News Arabia: “What concerns us today is the continuation of services for Syrians” and the fate of Syria’s army would be “left to the brothers who will take over the management of the country’s affairs”.
The BBC says Arab and Syrian news outlets have reported that Mohammed al-Bashir, a prominent figure in the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, will lead the transitional government as interim prime minister.
On Monday traffic returned to the streets of Damascus as people ventured out following the nighttime curfew. However, most shops remained shut, Reuters said, reporting that banks are expected to reopen on Tuesday.
The New York Times says the rebels have announced that “a new government would begin work immediately, as its fighters took up positions outside public buildings and directed traffic in a show of their newly claimed authority”. The paper also reports hundreds of Syrians rushed to the Sednaya Prison near the capital, which it says was notorious for torture and executions, in the hope of finding missing loved ones.
The BBC highlights the rebels have also announced they will grant amnesty to all military personnel conscripted into the army during Assad’s rule.
As for Assad’s whereabouts, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov would not tell Russian news agencies where the 59-year-old was in the country and claimed there were no immediate plans for Assad to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the NYT said.
The BBC flags that “Germany, France, Austria and the Nordic states are among several countries that have paused all pending asylum requests from Syrians”. The UK has done the same, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying Britain had “paused asylum decisions on cases from Syria while the Home Office reviews and monitors the current situation”. Austria has signalled it will soon deport refugees back to Syria, the BBC added.
The Guardian reports Türkiye is “opening its Yayladagi border gate with Syria to manage the safe and voluntary return of the millions of migrants it hosts, as hundreds gathered at border crossings”.
The United Nations has called the exodus of Syrians from the country during the 13-year civil war one of the largest refugee crises in the world, The New York Times recalls. The paper says that in a video recorded at the ancient Umayyad Mosque in Damascus on Monday, al-Shara declared: “How many were displaced all over this world? How many lived in tents? How many drowned in the seas?” and that now “people have returned to their homes”.
He added: “We have to build Syria. We have to build it in a right and effective way, so that Syria can return to its pioneering place in the world.”
The UK’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said the toppling of Assad’s regime brings “no guarantee of peace” in Syria, the BBC reports. On Monday he told the House of Commons the HTS is a prescribed terrorist organisation in the UK. “This should rightly make us cautious. We will judge HTS by their actions, monitoring closely how they and other parties to this conflict treat all civilians in areas they control.”
TOMAHAWK MISSILES
The Nine newspapers and AAP, among others, have flagged overnight the revelation from the chief of Australia’s navy, Mark Hammond, that it test-fired a Tomahawk missile off the US west coast last week.
The Sydney Morning Herald called it a “significant ramping up of the Australian Defence Force’s long-range strike capability” adding that “the government has said it is necessary to increase Australia’s long-range strike capability because of challenges to the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific”.
The AAP said the Australian warship HMAS Brisbane fired the Tomahawk missile on December 3, meaning the navy’s strike range is now 2,500km. The newswire reports Hammond called the launch a “historic advancement”.
“The enhanced lethality of our surface fleet is a critical and much-needed assurance mechanism to ensure our continued access to the sea, which sustains our livelihoods,” he said. “We are doing everything humanly and legally possible to optimise the Royal Australian Navy’s surface combatant fleet as quickly as possible.”
Elsewhere, the newswire flags yesterday’s update from authorities on the investigation into the arson attack on a synagogue in Melbourne on Friday.
“Authorities declared the fire a likely terror attack on Monday and confirmed investigators were looking for three suspects, but would not give details on who the attackers might be and whether they were known to police,” AAP says.
Yesterday Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also announced a federal taskforce to investigate acts of antisemitism in recent months.
The Australian wants us to focus on the PM playing a game of tennis on Saturday, declaring in its headline: “Anthony Albanese entertains Labor donors, plays tennis at Cottesloe as Jewish Australians reel from Melbourne synagogue attack.”
The SMH reports Albanese has defended his decision to play tennis in Perth on Saturday afternoon. Asked if it was an error of judgement, he replied he had had “six appointments on Saturday. After they had concluded late in the afternoon, I did some exercise. That’s what people do”.
Finally, the AAP flags we’ll get the latest interest rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia later today (although no-one is expecting any change), while new research shows expenses for families with a child under five are now 27% higher than they were in 2021.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
Regardless of one’s opinion on the monarchy, let’s be honest — if we had a crown or two at our disposal, we’d definitely wear them around the house in the evening, just because.
Turns out the late Queen Elizabeth II enjoyed a bit of casual crown-wearing too, according to her son Charles.
King Charles III is shown in a new documentary reminiscing about his mother wearing her crown at bathtime for him and his sister (Princess Anne), the BBC reports.
“I remember it all so well then, because I remember my sister and I had bath time in the evening,” Charles told a group of Canadian women who attended his mother’s coronation in 1953.
“My mama used to come up at bath time wearing the crown to practise. You have to get used to how heavy [the crown] is. I’ve never forgotten, I can still remember it vividly,”
Say What?
That one did puzzle me — I mean, that’s an Olympic-level dance.
Steph Broadbridge
The comedian expressed her surprise at being told by breakdancer Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn’s legal team she couldn’t perform the infamous kangaroo dance from the infamous Olympic Games routine as Gunn “owns it”, Guardian Australian reports. Broadbridge’s Raygun-inspired musical was cancelled ahead of its Sydney premiere after she received notice from the lawyers.
CRIKEY RECAP
This opposition caper is pretty easy, Peter Dutton must have been thinking throughout the year. Just bag the government, disappear from the media cycle if things ever get hectic, and let the Reserve Bank’s smashing of the economy do the job of undermining government support.
At some point, however, he was going to have to produce at least some policy. Not too soon, and not too much — just enough to look like he has some sort of plan. It should have been doable. After all, he has the entirety of News Corp on his side to praise his policy offerings, and the fencesitters and bothsiders of the press gallery in other outlets won’t criticise Dutton without making sure they offer equal criticism of the government.
But that overlooks the fact that Dutton is, to use a term made famous by Paul Keating, a policy bum. There is nothing in his political history that indicates either ministerial competence or policy nous. He was an indifferent health minister who failed to push through a Medicare copayment. As immigration and then home affairs minister, he lost control of borders to organised crime and failed to fix the many basic problems of the Immigration Department. His shorter time at Defence was of a Marlesian quality — a blithe indifference to the department’s many failings, while shrilly yelling at China.
Any day now, we’ll get the full details on the Coalition’s nuclear proposal. “[Peter] Dutton is preparing to release the long-anticipated costings of his party’s nuclear policy this week,” read a line in a Sydney Morning Herald story just this morning.
If you feel like you’ve heard that one before, you’re not wrong. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the many, many Coalition nuclear (non) announcements from the past few years.
Don’t let the hard left, the propagandists and apologists for Assad — like Tim Anderson, who visited Assad with John Shipton in 2013 and is currently spinning Assad’s downfall as an Israeli plot — tell you otherwise: the removal of this monster is an unmitigated good. He is responsible for the slaughter of at least half a million people, including more than 160,000 civilians. His regime’s systematic use of torture and sexual violence — against women, men and children — is a matter of record, as is his use of chemical weapons and illegal munitions on his own citizens. The only pity is that he wasn’t dragged from a ditch by his enemies like Muammar Gaddafi, but will instead enjoy the luxury of exile.
But like the welcome overthrow of Gaddafi did for Libya, Assad’s removal only rolls the dice on Syria’s political future rather than guaranteeing any sort of better world. The Libyan example demonstrates the chaos and misery that can follow the removal of a tyrant, as well as the consequences for the broader region (ask Italians about the scourge of mass illegal migration caused by Gaddafi’s removal, and the impact it has had on the nation’s politics).
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Dawn Fraser recovering from serious injuries after fall (The Sydney Morning Herald) ($)
Police arrest ‘strong person of interest’ in health care CEO’s killing (The New York Times) ($)
Jay-Z denies allegations he sexually assaulted a 13-year-old in 2000 with Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (CNN)
Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo and Timothee Chalamet up for Golden Globes (BBC)
‘It is quite creepy’: Keira Knightley flagged ‘stalkerish’ aspects while shooting Love Actually (The Guardian)
TikTok asks to pause ban until Supreme Court — and Trump — weigh in (Forbes)
THE COMMENTARIAT
Despite a dire poll result, Labor isn’t panicking — it’s all still to play for in 2025 – Paul Karp (Guardian Australia): But that doesn’t mean the opposition leader isn’t vulnerable to a Labor campaign that voters will be worse off under Dutton, given he is yet to announce any cost of living relief policies, and there is ample ammunition to fire about how his policies, such as on industrial relations, will send pay packets backwards.
There is generally no point picking the eyes out of an individual poll — the trend is your friend.
Labor and Albanese have slid from their honeymoon heights to a losable but not necessarily losing position; Dutton and the Coalition have recovered from their once-in-a-century loss at the Aston byelection to a winnable but not necessarily winning position.
I’ve found my Christmas nemesis. It’s hate, actually — Michelle Cazzulino (The Sydney Morning Herald): Slacker elf at our house, meanwhile, sat on an angle on one shelf before migrating to another shelf where it continued its vigil, albeit at a slightly different angle. The morning after that it’d fallen on the floor, then it forgot to leave the house at all.
After a teary intervention from its youngest spy target — and a dressing-down from Santa — it realised the error of its ways and slogged its way through scores of inspirational webpages featuring its contemporaries being pinned to walls by Spider-Man toys, and reclining in a hammock made of kitchen paper. It’s vowed to pick up its game, but short of its human assistants learning how to fashion eight toilet rolls into a giant albino reindeer for it to ride, it’s likely going to be an ongoing disappointment to its host family.
Fortunately, though, the little bugger has a master plan: file a series of glowing reports to Santa, who will dispense with threats of coal in favour of piles of presents on Christmas Day, and the rest will be forgotten. That’s if we get to Christmas Day, of course. There’s still a solid fortnight’s worth of stupid elf hijinks to dream up. Someone pass me the toilet rolls, please. It’s 10pm on Monday, and I’ve got an albino reindeer to create.
