Latest news with #Soroka
Fox Sports
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Fox Sports
Trevor Story homers as part of 4-hit day to help Red Sox beat Nationals 11-2
Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — Trevor Story homered and drove in four runs as part of a four-hit day, Lucas Giolito pitched 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball in his first game against the team that drafted him and the Boston Red Sox routed the Washington Nationals 11-2 on Friday. Jarren Duran had three RBIs for Boston, which collected 16 hits and has won four of six since enduring a season-worst six-game skid. Washington was denied its first three-game winning streak since taking four in a row on May 28-31. Giolito (5-1) allowed four hits and three walks while striking out seven, surrendering Luis García Jr.'s sacrifice fly in the sixth. He is 2-0 with an 0.61 ERA in his last two starts. The right-hander was the Nationals' first-round pick in 2012 and debuted with the team four years later. Washington traded him to the Chicago White Sox in December 2016. The Red Sox broke the game open with a seven-run fifth inning. After Boston loaded the bases, Wilyer Abreu walked in a run to make it 3-0 and Story ripped a two-run single to center to chase Washington starter Michael Soroka (3-6). Marcelo Mayer hit reliever Zach Brzykcy's first pitch to left to score Abreu. Three batters later, Duran hit a two-run double. He later scored on Abraham Toro's single. Story hit his 13th home run of the season in the eighth, a two-run blast to left off Ryan Loutos. Soroka allowed seven runs and struck out six in four innings, matching his shortest outing of the season. Key moment Story's two-run single in the fifth extended Boston's lead to 5-0 and ended Soroka's day. Key stat Boston has won 10 of its last 11 games on the Fourth of July. Up next The series continues Saturday when Boston RHP Walker Buehler (5-6, 6.45 ERA) faces Washington LHP Mitchell Parker (5-8, 4.63). ___ AP MLB: recommended
Hamilton Spectator
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Hamilton Spectator
Trevor Story homers as part of 4-hit day to help Red Sox beat Nationals 11-2
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trevor Story homered and drove in four runs as part of a four-hit day, Lucas Giolito pitched 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball in his first game against the team that drafted him and the Boston Red Sox routed the Washington Nationals 11-2 on Friday. Jarren Duran had three RBIs for Boston, which collected 16 hits and has won four of six since enduring a season-worst six-game skid. Washington was denied its first three-game winning streak since taking four in a row on May 28-31. Giolito (5-1) allowed four hits and three walks while striking out seven, surrendering Luis García Jr.'s sacrifice fly in the sixth. He is 2-0 with an 0.61 ERA in his last two starts. The right-hander was the Nationals' first-round pick in 2012 and debuted with the team four years later. Washington traded him to the Chicago White Sox in December 2016. The Red Sox broke the game open with a seven-run fifth inning. After Boston loaded the bases, Wilyer Abreu walked in a run to make it 3-0 and Story ripped a two-run single to center to chase Washington starter Michael Soroka (3-6). Marcelo Mayer hit reliever Zach Brzykcy's first pitch to left to score Abreu. Three batters later, Duran hit a two-run double. He later scored on Abraham Toro's single. Story hit his 13th home run of the season in the eighth, a two-run blast to left off Ryan Loutos. Soroka allowed seven runs and struck out six in four innings, matching his shortest outing of the season. Key moment Story's two-run single in the fifth extended Boston's lead to 5-0 and ended Soroka's day. Key stat Boston has won 10 of its last 11 games on the Fourth of July. Up next The series continues Saturday when Boston RHP Walker Buehler (5-6, 6.45 ERA) faces Washington LHP Mitchell Parker (5-8, 4.63). ___ AP MLB:
Winnipeg Free Press
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trevor Story homers as part of 4-hit day to help Red Sox beat Nationals 11-2
WASHINGTON (AP) — Trevor Story homered and drove in four runs as part of a four-hit day, Lucas Giolito pitched 7 2/3 innings of one-run ball in his first game against the team that drafted him and the Boston Red Sox routed the Washington Nationals 11-2 on Friday. Jarren Duran had three RBIs for Boston, which collected 16 hits and has won four of six since enduring a season-worst six-game skid. Washington was denied its first three-game winning streak since taking four in a row on May 28-31. Giolito (5-1) allowed four hits and three walks while striking out seven, surrendering Luis García Jr.'s sacrifice fly in the sixth. He is 2-0 with an 0.61 ERA in his last two starts. The right-hander was the Nationals' first-round pick in 2012 and debuted with the team four years later. Washington traded him to the Chicago White Sox in December 2016. The Red Sox broke the game open with a seven-run fifth inning. After Boston loaded the bases, Wilyer Abreu walked in a run to make it 3-0 and Story ripped a two-run single to center to chase Washington starter Michael Soroka (3-6). Marcelo Mayer hit reliever Zach Brzykcy's first pitch to left to score Abreu. Three batters later, Duran hit a two-run double. He later scored on Abraham Toro's single. Story hit his 13th home run of the season in the eighth, a two-run blast to left off Ryan Loutos. Soroka allowed seven runs and struck out six in four innings, matching his shortest outing of the season. Key moment Story's two-run single in the fifth extended Boston's lead to 5-0 and ended Soroka's day. Key stat Winnipeg Jets Game Days On Winnipeg Jets game days, hockey writers Mike McIntyre and Ken Wiebe send news, notes and quotes from the morning skate, as well as injury updates and lineup decisions. Arrives a few hours prior to puck drop. Boston has won 10 of its last 11 games on the Fourth of July. Up next The series continues Saturday when Boston RHP Walker Buehler (5-6, 6.45 ERA) faces Washington LHP Mitchell Parker (5-8, 4.63). ___ AP MLB:
Boston Globe
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Boston Globe
Red Sox sparkle on the Fourth, as Lucas Giolito, Trevor Story highlight romp over Nationals
For at least a day, the Sox can dream that dream. They pummeled the Nats, 11-2, behind another excellent outing from Lucas Giolito (7⅔ innings, one run) and a huge day from Trevor Story (4 for 5, four RBI, three runs scored). The Red Sox played the part of a powerhouse in grabbing a fourth win in their past six games. The latest offensive outburst gave them 51 runs in that stretch. This time, every member of the starting lineup reached base at least once before Washington recorded an out in the fifth inning. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The Sox ripped righthander Michael Soroka for seven runs and nine hits over four-plus innings. Advertisement Soroka managed OK most of the way, navigating trouble other than a pair of runs in a 33-pitch second inning, but fell apart quickly in the fifth. The first five Sox reached base. That included Story's two-run single. When Soroka departed, reliever Zach Brzykcy gave up three runs with two outs, including Jarren Duran's two-run double. With his longest start in nearly four years, Giolito continued his strong run. He owns a 0.83 ERA in five starts the past month (and a 3.66 ERA on the season). Advertisement Giolito didn't give up a hit until the third, when No. 9 batter Jacob Young lined a single to center. He didn't allow a run until the sixth, when Luis García Jr.'s sacrifice fly — a potential extra-base hit that Ceddanne Rafaela reeled in with an over-the-shoulder grab in deep center field — plated CJ Abrams. That made for a sparkling return to Nationals Park, where Giolito had last pitched as a Nats rookie in 2016. A prized prospect at the time, Giolito was traded to the White Sox in the Adam Eaton deal that offseason. As for Cora's 2018 comparison? The first half of the season has yielded plenty of differences between those eventual World Series champions and these Sox. That club was 56-29 upon arriving in the nation's capital, for example. This group is 44-45. Tim Healey can be reached at
The Advertiser
23-06-2025
- Politics
- The Advertiser
Pot, kettle, black. We're wallowing in hypocrisy
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?" This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to Who the hell does that? It was a hospital, for god's sake. Full of the sick, the immobile. Babies. Mothers. Innocents. The tyrants will pay a high price, he told the media, with as straight a face as he could muster - a challenge for someone whose mouth always struggles to suppress an ironic smirk. This was a criminal act, he said. We target military installations; they target civilians. Benjamin Netanyahu's condemnation of the Iranian missile strike on the Soroka Medical Centre in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba was meant to rally his nation, showing the world it was acting with high moral purpose. Instead, it reeked of hypocrisy. Just 40km away, in the rubble that was once Gaza, people have lost count of the number of times hospitals have been struck by Israel. Lost count, too, of the number of times Israel claimed the attacks - not just on hospitals but on schools and tented encampments - were targeting Hamas militants. The only count not lost: the 55,000 dead Palestinians. The day before the hospital was hit, dozens of Palestinians were killed in Gaza trying to get food from the shambolic Israeli-run aid distribution sites. Some of the dead showed injuries consistent with tank fire. Pot, kettle, black. Of course, the hypocrisy isn't limited to Netanyahu in this ugly slugfest between Israel and Iran. The leaders of our own democracies have been wallowing in it too. For years, they've championed a rules-based world order but the moment Israel breaks those rules - as international law experts argue it has with its pre-emptive strike on Iran - they go to water. Japan is the only G7 nation to condemn Israel's attack on Iran but has stopped short of sanctioning it. When a key enforcer of those rules, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says explicitly there is no evidence to indicate that Iran has a plan to develop nuclear weapons, justification for that pre-emptive strike looks as thin as George W. Bush's pretext for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Remember? The weapons of mass destruction no one could find. All we see, however, are bland appeals for de-escalation and a diplomatic resolution. Israel isn't chastised for its risky impunity. Instead, it's given tacit support with statements about its right to defend itself even if there's no evidence of an imminent threat. Applying that logic, was Russia justified in invading Ukraine because it perceived an imminent threat? Of course it wasn't. But in geopolitics what's good for the goose doesn't always apply to the gander. You only have to pause on the words of German chancellor Friedrich Merz to see how that works: "This is the dirty work that Israel is doing for all of us." Dirty work indeed. It's not in anyone's interest for Iran to have nuclear weapons. Nor for Israel to have them for that matter. And it's certainly not in anyone's interest to have missiles raining down on nuclear facilities either. The world made that clear when artillery shells struck the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine during the Russian invasion. Yet we hear little about the potential for a nuclear calamity if these strikes continue. We're informed of radiation levels in Iran by the IAEA, the nuclear enforcement agency granted access to its facilities because the country signed up to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In so doing, it agreed to play by the very rules others seem so keen to dispense with. HAVE YOUR SAY: How important is it to maintain a rules-based order in international affairs? Should other countries follow Japan's lead in condemning Israel for its pre-emptive strike on Iran? Are we repeating the same mistakes made in Iraq back in 2003? Email us: echidna@ SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too. IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: - The Coalition's former leader in the Senate, Simon Birmingham, will join the Australian Banking Association as its chief executive, in his first major move outside politics. - Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will not go to The Hague for this week's NATO summit, with his deputy Richard Marles to represent Australia at the event as originally planned. - Artificial intelligence could disrupt more than just technology - it could widen the gender gap between boys and girls studying science, technology, engineering and maths. THEY SAID IT: "Rules are not necessarily sacred, principles are." - Franklin D. Roosevelt YOU SAID IT: Our relationship with the US is not what it used to be. Perhaps it's time, Garry wrote, that we grew up and moved on. "Many of us, including various peace groups and LAW (Labor Against War) are not happy to be aligned with the US, the planet's most aggressive country since World War II," writes Judy from Newcastle. "AUKUS is a wasteful mistake. We don't have enemies, however, our sycophantic politicians allow increasing US bases, troops, ports and general infrastructure for a war. These threaten our security. Now is the perfect time to part company." There's still hope for the relationship, writes Arthur: "Donald Trump has only three and a half years to run, assuming he does not find his way to get re-elected. At the end of his term we may be able to start a process of reconciliation but we must never go back to being so vulnerable to the whims of a future president." "For these past 50 years I have been longing for Australia to be an adult country," writes Debora. "We have acted as a 'child' country: going from child to the parent UK - 'home' and empire, to child to the parent US from the faux ANZUS alliance to the craven AUKUS nonsense. Either we do that again - this time as a child country to China or we finally learn to stand on our own two feet - yes, with strong alliances and trade relationships but not as a supplicant to any nation." Bill from McKellar writes: "A marvellous piece of writing - one can only hope our politicians are subscribers to the Echidna. Ever since ScoMo tried to wedge the ALP with AUKUS, and the unquestioning embrace of it by the ALP, our foreign policy wheels have fallen off. So many of our past politicians have expressed views like yours - when will Albanese and Ley listen to them and wake up to what's happening?"
