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Malcolm Turnbull asks defence department official what Australia would do if the promised Virginia-class and Aukus-class submarines don’t arrive Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcastAustralia will be left with no submarines if it abandons the Aukus deal with the US and UK, a senior defence official has warned, declining to publicly countenance an alternative plan if Australia’s promised nuclear-powered fleet does not arrive under Australian command.“Defence has been directed to pursue Aukus and we are pursuing Aukus and that’s our plan. I would not venture into the space about ‘Plan B’ or ‘Plan C’,” defence department deputy secretary, Hugh Jeffrey, told a Sovereignty and Security Forum in Canberra on Friday. Continue reading...

Slovenia’s government says its intelligence service has confirmed foreign influence around the country’s parliamentary election

Nepal’s youngest prime minister will take the oath of office in a ceremony shaped as much by astrology as politics

Navy searching for two boats that left Isla Mujeres last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on boardMexico’s navy said on Thursday it had activated a search-and-rescue operation in the Caribbean to locate two sailboats carrying humanitarian aid to Cuba after the vessels failed to arrive in Havana as scheduled.In a statement, the navy said the two boats left Isla Mujeres, in the Mexican Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, last week bound for Havana with nine crew members of different nationalities on board. Continue reading...

Vice President JD Vance suggested that Iran had the desire to blow up grocery stores with nuclear suicide vests.During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Vance praised the U.S. military strikes on Iran for creating options for negotiations."What we have now that we didn't have when the president took over just a little over a year ago is the ability to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that Iran doesn't get a nuclear weapon," he explained. "Because when I say options, I think it's important the American people know, options, and it's options to ensure that Iran never has a nuclear weapon.""You talk about people who walk into a crowded supermarket and have a vest on, for what? And they blow up the vest, and a couple of people get killed, and that's a terrible tragedy. What happens when what's on the vest, it's not something that can kill a couple of people but can kill many, many tens of thousands of people?" he added. Vance reiterated a Trump administration talking point about preventing Iran from building or obtaining a nuclear weapon. "That is the most important American national security objective that exists for any administration at any time is you don't want the worst people in the world to have a nuclear weapon."

Nigeria and UK look to strengthen trade and economic ties amid growing calls from Africa and Caribbean for reparative justice“There are chapters in our shared history that I know have left some painful marks,” King Charles said during a state banquet to welcome the Nigerian president, Bola Tinubu, to the UK, in a year in which the monarch is expected to come under renewed pressure to make a formal apology for transatlantic slavery and colonialism.But while demands grow from African and Caribbean nations for the UK to further reparative justice, Nigeria and the UK are looking to the future of global trade. Continue reading...

During a discussion on the multiple crises that Donald Trump’s White House is facing, MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire pointed out that there are questions about the president’s ability to understand that his war in Iran is not going as well as he appears to think it is.With the panel pointing out the high cost of gas for Americans due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, combined with chaos in US airports because the president is holding up legislation that pays TSA agents, Lemire suggested the president may be overwhelmed.“This is another example of the president simply being detached from what's actually going on,“ he told the “Morning Joe“ panel. “We have chronicled for a year and a half now that even more than most presidents, this one lives in a bubble; he only hears good news. No aide ever gives him something that's going to be upsetting. We'll get into it later.”“The story from NBC about how he's basically given a highlight reel of war videos. He just sees explosions, and there's some questions as to how much he's really comprehending what is going on in that conflict,” he elaborated. “And this is another moment where he's bought into this idea that ICE, though he recognizes some of the mass deportations have gone poorly politically, he still believes in ICE. He still, every day on Truth Social, three or four times yesterday, supporting them, supporting their efforts and trying to blame Democrats for what we're seeing here. But all polls suggest it's not working, and his party is going to pay the price this November.” - YouTube youtu.be

Donald Trump’s promises that negotiations with Iran are going well have been falling flat and he appears to have lost patience.Earlier in the week, the president postponed plans to conduct wide-range bombing of Iran’s energy infrastructure because he said he saw an opening in negotiations — a claim Iran quickly refuted.On Thursday morning, the president lost his temper on Truth Social.“The Iranian negotiators are very different and ‘strange.’ They are ‘begging’ us to make a deal, which they should be doing since they have been militarily obliterated, with zero chance of a comeback, and yet they publicly state that they are only “looking at our proposal.” WRONG!!! They better get serious soon, before it is too late, because once that happens, there is NO TURNING BACK, and it won’t be pretty! President DJT,” he wrote.That came just moments after he snarled, “NATO NATIONS HAVE DONE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO HELP WITH THE LUNATIC NATION, NOW MILITARILY DECIMATED, OF IRAN. THE U.S.A. NEEDS NOTHING FROM NATO, BUT “NEVER FORGET” THIS VERY IMPORTANT POINT IN TIME! President DONALD J. TRUMP”