Dr Kylie Moore-Gilbert on the bombing of Iran's Evin prison
In this chat with Matt Bevan, Kylie talks about solitary confinement, Iranian cheetahs, how her first cellmate was a spy, and why the regime is cracking down on dissidents right now.
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News.com.au
3 hours ago
- News.com.au
Not tired of winning: Trump on a roll, for now
Even for a man who once boasted that his supporters would get "tired of winning," US President Donald Trump is on a roll. The 79-year-old's victory on his "One Big, Beautiful" bill is the latest in a series of consequential successes at home and abroad in the past two weeks. From US airstrikes that led to an Iran-Israel ceasefire, to a NATO spending deal and a massive Supreme Court win, they have underscored Trump's growing power. The Republican will now take a victory lap wrapped up in the US flag after Congress passed the tax and spending bill that embodies the political goals of his second term. He will sign it at an Independence Day event at the White House on Friday featuring a flyover by a B-2 stealth bomber, the type of aircraft used in the US raids on Iranian nuclear sites. "It's going to be a HOT TRUMP SUMMER," the White House said on social media. After the bill passed, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, posted a video of Trump telling a campaign rally during his first presidential run in 2016 that "we're going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning. And you'll say, 'Please, please. It's too much winning." - 'Work just beginning' - The author of the book "Trump: The Art of the Deal" has bragged of several in recent weeks, but the bill is arguably the biggest. It honors many of the pledges he made in the 2024 election with its tax cuts and funding for his mass migrant deportation program. It also showed his ability to get his Republican party to fall in line despite bruising infighting -- and a major row with his billionaire former ally Elon Musk. But more importantly for a man who openly wants to join the pantheon of US presidents whose faces are carved into Mount Rushmore, it promises to consolidate his legacy. The bill seals Trump's hard-line US domestic policy into law -- in contrast to the rash of presidential executive orders he has signed that can be overturned by his successors. Yet Trump still faces a series of challenges. They start with selling a bill that polls show is deeply unpopular among Americans due to its huge cuts to welfare and tax breaks for the rich. "The president needs to lead the effort to go out and explain it, he has the biggest megaphone in America," Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff under president George W. Bush, told Fox News. Rove added that it would have a "huge impact" on the US midterm elections in 2026, as Democrats pounce on it and people realize that they are losing healthcare coverage. "The work is just beginning." Trump was talking about the bill at a campaign-style rally in Iowa on Thursday that was also kicking off celebrations for America's 250th anniversary year. - 'Win after win' - Trump's winning streak has meanwhile fueled the self-belief of a man who said he had been "saved by God to make America great again" after he survived an assassination attempt last year. But the next prizes could be far harder to obtain. After the Iran-Israel ceasefire, Trump has stepped up his search for a deal to end to the brutal war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. He will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday in push him -- but peace has proven cruelly elusive in the 22-month conflict. Trump's election campaign promise to end Russia's war in Ukraine within 24 hours has also stalled, despite him having his sixth call with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier on Thursday. The US president is meanwhile due to reimpose steep tariffs on dozens of economies next week. He has insisted that countries will either bow to him and reach a deal or face sweeping levies, but global markets remain gripped by uncertainty. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt however insisted that Trump would do what he had promised. "Despite the doubters and the Panicans, President Trump has delivered win after win for the American people," Leavitt told reporters.
ABC News
5 hours ago
- ABC News
Dozens killed in Gaza despite hopes of Hamas-Israel ceasefire
Israeli strikes, artillery and gunfire killed 69 people on Thursday, according to Gaza's civil defence agency, as militant group Hamas seeks US guarantees that a new ceasefire proposal would lead to a lasting end to the war. Israel has stepped up its offensive in the Palestinian enclave in recent weeks and maintained its military operation against Hamas, despite agreeing to the conditions of a US-led ceasefire proposal this week. Those killed on Thursday local time included 38 people waiting for humanitarian aid at three separate locations in central and southern Gaza and a child killed by a drone in Jabalia in the north. Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said 15 people, "the majority of them children and women", were killed and several others wounded in an Israeli air strike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. Regarding that incident, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told AFP news agency it "struck a key Hamas terrorist who was operating in a Hamas command and control centre in Gaza City". "Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence," it added. Regarding numerous other strikes across the territory on Thursday, it said it could not comment in detail without precise coordinates and times. "In response to Hamas's barbaric attacks, the IDF is operating to dismantle Hamas military capabilities," it told AFP. It said it "follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm". The war in Gaza began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent military assault has killed more than 57,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of the population of more than 2 million has been displaced, triggering widespread hunger and leaving much of the territory in ruins. Despite daily strikes in Gaza, Israeli officials have been expressing increasing optimism that a ceasefire and hostage deal could be reached, nearly 21 months after the war with Hamas began. Efforts for a Gaza truce have gathered steam after the US secured a ceasefire to end a 12-day aerial war between Israel and Iran. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that Israel had accepted the conditions needed to finalise a 60-day ceasefire with Hamas, during which the parties will work to end the war. Egyptian security sources said Egyptian and Qatari mediators were working to secure US and international guarantees that talks on ending the war would continue as a way of convincing Hamas to accept the two-month truce proposal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit Washington DC on Monday. Despite hopes of a ceasefire, Israel has in recent days expanded its military operations in Gaza in what it says is a fresh bid to target Hamas. On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas to its "foundation". Reuters/AFP
News.com.au
5 hours ago
- News.com.au
UN expert says firms 'profiting' from 'genocide' of Palestinians
UN rights expert Francesca Albanese on Thursday denounced companies she said "profited from the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now genocide", in a report that provoked a furious response from Israel. Some of the companies named in her report also raised objections. Albanese presented her report, investigating "the corporate machinery sustaining the Israeli settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians", to the UN Human Rights Council. Companies should stop all business activities and relationships that caused or contributed to rights violations and international crimes, she argued. In response, Israel's mission in Geneva said Albanese's report was motivated by her "obsessive, hate-driven agenda to delegitimise the state of Israel". It was "legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of office", it added. Swiss mining and commodity trading giant Glencore, named in the report, also denounced her allegations as "unfounded". - Machinery of erasure' - Albanese is the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. She described the situation in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as "apocalyptic" as she presented the report. "In Gaza, Palestinians continue to endure suffering beyond imagination," she added. Businesses from arms makers to supermarkets and universities had facilitated "this machinery of erasure", Albanese told the UN's top rights body. Some had supplied the financial and general infrastructure for Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territories, she said. "All have helped entrench apartheid and enable the slow, inexorable destruction of Palestinian life." Her presentation Thursday was received with applause in the chamber. But Albanese has faced harsh criticism, allegations of anti-Semitism and demands for her removal, from Israel and some of its allies, over her relentless criticism and long-standing accusations of "genocide". While appointed by the Human Rights Council she does not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself. - 'Profited from the violence' - Albanese told journalists she had contacted all 48 companies named in her report, entitled "From economy of occupation to economy of genocide". Eighteen had responded and "only a small number engaged with me in good faith", most of them saying "there was absolutely nothing wrong". "There have been people and organisations who have profited from the violence, the killing," she said. "My report exposes a system, something that is so structural and so widespread and so systemic that there is no possibility to fix it and redress it: it needs to be dismantled." Albanese said the first responsibility to take action was on countries, then on companies, then their consumers. However, "we are part of a system where we are all entangled and choices that we make... have an impact elsewhere", she said. "There is a possibility for consumers to hold these companies accountable, because somewhat we vote through our wallets." - 'Unsubstantiated' - AFP sought a comment from several companies named in the report. Some did not respond. Travel platform said: "Our mission is to make it easier for everyone to experience the world and as such we believe it's not our place to decide where someone can or cannot travel." A communications firm representing Microsoft said the tech giant "doesn't have anything to share". Danish shipping giant Maersk said it disagreed with many of Albanese's assertions. Maersk "remains committed to following international standards for responsible business conduct", it said. Since the war between Israel and Hamas began, "we have maintained a strict policy of not shipping weapons or ammunition to Israel", it added. A Volvo Group spokesman told AFP: "We obviously respect human rights in accordance with the United Nations framework. "We have no operations of our own, either in Palestine or in Israel, but rather sell through resellers," he added. Glencore, in its response, said: "We categorically reject all the allegations appearing in this report and consider them unsubstantiated and devoid of any legal basis." Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack that prompted the Israeli offensive resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 57,130 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since October 2023.
