US envoy criticises Australia’s response to antisemitism
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy on antisemitism criticised Australia for failing to heed warnings about Jew hatred as he queried why alleged Bondi gunman Naveed Akram was able to access weapons while being on a terror watch list.
Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun said antisemitism envoys such as himself or Australia’s Jillian Segal must be empowered to take action. “You can’t neuter them or you have to respect their suggestions,” he said.
Segal, he said, had “numerous recommendations for years leading up to this attack in Bondi about how to protect students on campus, how to do things that – how to educate people against hate. [But] they fell on deaf ears.”
Kaploun said it had taken a “worldwide effort” to convince the Australian government to hold a royal commission into antisemitism in the wake of the December 15, 2025 massacre at Bondi Beach, which targeted Jews on the eve of Chanukah.
Spain’s PM calls early election to confront ‘far-right wave’
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called an early general election, seeking to seize momentum from housing protests that have roiled the country and frame the vote around issues that are favourable to his Socialist party.
The election is scheduled for November 29, eight months earlier than originally planned.
Spaniards have staged repeated protests in cities across the country in recent weeks, demanding action on the entrenched housing crisis amid outrage over the widely publicised eviction of an 87-year-old woman in Madrid last month.
Sánchez’s government suffered a bruising legislative defeat last week when right-wing opposition parties voted down emergency decrees introduced by his government to address evictions and real estate speculation.
PM heads to Tuvalu for climate change talks
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will travel to Tuvalu for the Pacific Pre-COP Leaders’ event with other leaders and ministers today, marking his first official visit to the island nation which is beset by the impacts of climate change.
Only two leaders from nations beyond the Pacific are attending the meeting in Fiji this week hosted by Australia, Fiji and Tuvalu, as Climate Minister Chris Bowen insists the talks are a crucial to focussing world attention on the threat to the region ahead of next month’s UN climate conference.
The Albanese government faces intense domestic pressure to justify the cost, estimated at more than $20 million, and to live up to promises to champion the Pacific’s climate concerns on a world stage while responding to a global energy crisis and staving off accusations they are a distraction from domestic cost of living pressures.
Australian Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said Australian taxpayers’ money was being well spent.
“This is our most important diplomatic engagement in the Pacific, certainly this term, probably for longer than this term,” he said in Nadi yesterday.
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Australian underworld weaponises AI
Organised crime groups are using artificial intelligence to streamline their global drug-trafficking operations and create fake documents, identities and business records to facilitate large-scale imports and money-laundering.
Authorities warn that criminals are exploiting the rapidly evolving technologies to recruit vulnerable community members and deceive Australia’s financial institutions as they evade law enforcement detection amid the increased sophistication of international crime syndicates.
“The growing accessibility of AI technology is enabling criminal networks to operate more efficiently and adapt more quickly to disruption efforts by law enforcement agencies,” acting Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Donna Parsons said.
Parsons said while the emergence of artificial intelligence created new opportunities for innovation and economic growth, the technology was allowing criminal groups to fine-tune existing techniques and reduce risk of detection by authorities.
‘Shameful’: Greens under fire for Ukraine stance
Ukraine’s top representative in Australia has urged the Greens to rethink their opposition to providing military aid to defend against Russia’s invasion, as Labor and the Coalition accuse the left-wing party of taking a naive stance that would help Vladimir Putin.
The peak body for the Ukrainian-Australian community is urgently seeking a meeting with new Greens leader David Shoebridge to express its concern after Shoebridge told this masthead the party did not support Australia sending weapons and other military equipment to the Ukrainian army.
Shoebridge said Australia should not provide direct military assistance unless the United Nations Security Council backed such transfers – a move Russia would inevitably veto by using its position as a permanent member of the council.
Pointing to Putin’s opposition to the socially progressive policies championed by the Greens, Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, said: “I cannot believe, then, that the Greens actively seek an outcome where President Putin’s policies are imposed on Ukrainian society, we lose the social freedoms and equalities Australians enjoy, and our entire nation is swallowed up by Russia.”
Myroshnychenko said that while the Greens were entitled to their views, he was concerned the party’s stance “does not appear to distinguish between offensive wars of choice, aggression and territorial expansion versus wars of desperate defence and national survival”.
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Taylor plans radical immigration cuts
Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will aim to halt One Nation’s momentum by revealing he would slash migration to about a third of the current intake – a larger-than-expected reduction the party claims would not hurt Australia’s ailing budget and economy.
Multiple sources who were unable to provide full detail ahead of the policy’s release tonight said the party would reduce net migration to about 100,000 in the first year should it win the election.
The opposition is choosing to pivot back to migration, an issue that has driven voters to Hanson, a week after Labor was widely criticised by economists over its handling of inflation and interest rates, which rose to a 15-year-high.
Taylor continues to trail One Nation and Labor by the same margin Sussan Ley was recording before he replaced her in February. The Coalition has been desperate to neutralise the issue of migration, which has sparked similar cultural debates in peer democracies and has turned into a central political issue in Canberra.
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Here’s what’s making news this morning
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of national news for Tuesday, October 6. Here’s what’s making headlines today:
- Opposition Leader Angus Taylor will aim to halt One Nation’s momentum by slashing migration to about a third of the current intake. Under its new plan, international students would be forced offshore before applying for new visas.
- Ukraine’s top representative in Australia has urged the Greens to rethink their opposition to providing military aid to defend against Russia’s invasion, as Labor and the Coalition accuse the left-wing party of taking a naive stance that would help Vladimir Putin.
- Only two leaders from nations beyond the Pacific are attending the Pre-COP meeting in Fiji this week hosted by Australia, Fiji and Tuvalu, as Climate Minister Chris Bowen insists the talks are a crucial to focussing world attention ahead of next month’s UN climate conference.
- Organised crime groups are using artificial intelligence to streamline their global drug-trafficking operations and create fake documents, identities and business records to facilitate large-scale imports and money-laundering, the AFP and experts say.
- The flydubai co-pilot who allegedly stabbed his captain in a suspected attempt to crash the plane last week studied at Victoria’s RMIT for two years, though he did not complete his engineering degree, the university has confirmed.
- Dementia researchers at clinics and labs around the world are cautiously embracing a new word: “Breakthrough.” New treatments add up to a game changer for treating Alzheimer’s, they say.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
