ISRAELI SOLDIERS KILLED
Israel says eight of its soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hezbollah in south Lebanon, Reuters reports. Hezbollah also confirmed the ground fighting on Wednesday, the first time it has been reported since Israel invaded at the start of the week. Meanwhile, the BBC reports the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said over 50 people have been killed in the past 24 hours by an Israeli offensive in the Khan Younis area.
In Lebanon, Reuters says Hezbollah has claimed to have destroyed three Israeli Merkava tanks near the border town of Maroun El Ras, while CNN reports 47 injured people were taken to three Israeli hospitals. Responding to the deaths of the Israeli soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We are at the height of a difficult war against Iran’s Axis of Evil, which wants to destroy us. This will not happen because we will stand together and with God’s help, we will win together.”
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s media chief Mohammad Afif said Wednesday’s battles were only “the first round” and that the militant group had enough fighters, weapons and ammunition to push back Israel.
The fighting comes the day after Iran launched almost 200 missiles at Israel. Axios reports Israeli officials have pledged “significant retaliation” against Iran, with the country’s oil facilities and air defence system the likely targets. On Wednesday, US President Joe Biden said he did not support an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, The Guardian highlights. Biden told reporters: “We’ll be discussing with the Israelis what they’re going to do, but all seven of us [the G7 nations] agree that they have a right to respond but they should respond proportionally.”
Two senior Biden administration officials told CNN the US was not trying to persuade Israel to hold back on retaliating against Iran. “No-one’s saying don’t respond,” one official said, “no-one’s saying ‘take the win’” — a reference to Biden’s remarks to Israel in April after it deterred a previous attack from Iran. “They [Israel] are doing the smart thing and taking a beat and thinking about it,” one of the Biden officials said.
At the UN Security Council, the Iranian envoy Amir Saeid Iravani said Tuesday’s attack was a “necessary and proportionate response” to Israel’s “aggressive acts” in the Middle East over the past few months, CNN reports. The Guardian quotes Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian as saying at a press conference in Doha: “If [Israel] wants to react, we will have a stronger response, this is what the Islamic Republic is committed to. We are not looking for war, it is Israel that forces us to react.”
The site also said the Al-Qassam brigades, Hamas’ military wing, has claimed responsibility for a shooting and knife attack in Tel Aviv that left at least seven people dead on Tuesday.
SHRINKFLATION
The Albanese government has said it is looking to introduce “substantial” fines for supermarkets that breach a strengthened unit pricing code, AAP reports, with the government focused on the practice of “shrinkflation” — when a product is reduced in size but remains the same price.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is quoted by the ABC as saying: “Tackling ‘shrinkflation’ through stronger unit pricing and new penalties is part of our plan to get a better deal for Australians. Australian consumers deserve fair prices, not dodgy discounts.” AAP said the government would next begin consulting on areas of the code, including improving readability and visibility of unit pricing and addressing inconsistent use of units of measure.
The national newswire this morning also draws attention to the upcoming Queensland election, with Premier Steven Miles and Opposition Leader David Crisafulli set to debate each other later tonight. The event in Brisbane is on the Nine Network from 7.30pm (AEST).
The latest polling shows the Liberal National Party well ahead of the incumbent Labor on a two-party preferred basis. Yesterday, Robbie Katter, the Katter’s Australian Party state leader, said the party would be asking its supporters to preference the opposition in Townsville on polling day (October 26). “We’ve never preferenced against Liberal or Labor anywhere in Queensland. But we’re going to do it this time because we feel (Labor) need to be sent a message somewhere in north Queensland,” AAP quotes him as saying.
Talking of political parties, The Australian reckons WA Senator Fatima Payman could launch her own political party in the next few weeks. The paper claims political sources in Western Australia believe the party could be launched and registered before next month and would potentially run Senate candidates in each state, “even contesting some select marginal lower house seats at the next federal election”.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
A new species of moth native to Guyana has been discovered 4,500 miles away in a living room in Wales.
The Natural History Museum recalls how ecologist Daisy Cadet, who shares the house with her mother Ashleigh, discovered the clearwing moth. After spotting the striking insect flying around her home, Daisy caught and photographed the moth and later uploaded the picture to Instagram.
One of Daisy’s followers, upon seeing the post, recommended she get in touch with the insect charity Butterfly Conservation, who in turn — after appreciating the unusual nature of the moth — put her touch with the museum. The BBC said subsequent DNA testing revealed the moth was previously unknown to science. It has now been named Carmenta brachyclados.
Daisy, 22, said: “It wasn’t flying around at all — probably because the house was too cold at the time, and the other one next to it had already died. When I first saw them, I knew they were clearwings and assumed it was a UK species like the six-banded clearwing. For me, finding a new moth was exciting enough but at this point, I had no idea it was so unusual.”
How the moth got to Port Talbot in Wales in the first place appears to have been due to Daisy’s mum. Ashleigh, who is a professional photographer, had just returned from an assignment in Guyana. Upon searching, Daisy found delicate pupal casings among the mud at the bottom of her mum’s boot bag after the trip, the Natural History Museum revealed.
Say What?
Even if we were to lose that case, we would go ahead with our protest.
Josh Lees
Lees, from the Palestine Action Group, said the group would continue with its rallies in Sydney this weekend, even if they are prohibited by the NSW Supreme Court, ABC reports.
CRIKEY RECAP
Advocates from anti-Islamophobia and Palestinian groups have questioned why the announcement of Labor’s envoy to combat Islamophobia was so subdued compared to the “spectacle of attention” paid to its envoy to combat antisemitism a few months ago.
Media were not invited to an event at the Sheraton Grand hotel in Sydney on Monday where Aftab Malik was announced as special envoy to combat Islamophobia. News of his selection was first reported by Capital Brief in the early afternoon, and then confirmed in a Monday evening press release co-signed by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Multicultural Affairs Minister Tony Burke. No press conferences were scheduled with either minister the following day.
By contrast, when Jillian Segal was appointed special envoy to combat antisemitism in July, the prime minister and the then multiculturalism minister held a press conference with her on the same day.
Sovereign citizens and radical jihadist groups are behind the increasingly lo-fi, lone wolf-style attacks that make up the biggest terror threat to Australia, according to internal Australian Federal Police (AFP) documents.
Wieambilla attackers Nathaniel, Gareth and Stacey Train and jihadi Momena Shoma were highlighted in police counter-terrorism presentations and briefings as representing examples of religiously motivated violent extremism.
The AFP has been raising the alarm about the changing forms of terrorism through public statements, like last year’s inaugural federal crime threat picture, as well as submissions and statements before various parliamentary inquiries and committees.
Documents obtained by freedom of information request provide new details and examples of the kinds of terrorism that primarily worry the agency.
Peter Dutton is losing the debate over nuclear power. Even the pro-nuclear Financial Review agrees, which ran an editorial last week wondering where the Coalition’s details were. And the Coalition’s proposal for the government to own the nuclear industry has made it look more like election boondoggle than visionary economic reform.
It is starting to look like a big missed opportunity.
Because in 2024, the question facing Australian governments is not only how to transition from polluting energy sources to non-polluting sources. It is also how to set up an economic and regulatory framework to service what is likely to be massive growth in electricity demand over the next decade.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Who won the debate? A crisp Vance fends off Walz (The New York Times) ($)
Biden deploys 1,000 soldiers as Helene death toll rises to 175 (BBC)
OpenAI Raises $6.6B in massive funding round (The Hollywood Reporter)
A US bomb from World War II explodes at Japanese airport, making a large crater in a taxiway (LA Times) ($)
Keir Starmer pays back £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality (The Guardian)
Surgeon who couldn’t find scalpel used his penknife on patient (The Times) ($)
THE COMMENTARIAT
‘Vance’s excellent reviews will enrage Trump’: 13 writers on who won the vice-presidential debate – New York Times Opinion (The New York Times): Vance — because he was quite good and Trump was so awful — must have had MAGA Republicans all over the country admit, if only to themselves, that Trump is not just flawed but deranged.
For them, it must have been 90 minutes of enormous relief. Oh, and Vance’s excellent reviews will enrage Trump. So will the fact that Vance seemed more interested in repairing his own image than being Trump’s attack dog.
Harris faces triple trouble, even before October’s inevitable surprises — David Smith (The Guardian): “100” was spelled out in giant numbers on the White House north lawn on Tuesday. It was a birthday tribute to the former US president Jimmy Carter, who served only one term after being buffeted by external events such as high inflation and a hostage crisis in Iran.
The current occupant of the White House, Joe Biden, must know the feeling as he fights three fires at once. Iran has launched at least 180 missiles into Israel, six US states are still reeling from Hurricane Helene, and ports from Maine to Texas shut down as about 45,000 dockworkers went on strike.
Unlike Carter, Biden already knows his fate: he is not seeking reelection next month. But what remains uncertain is whether the trio of troubles will drag down his vice president and would-be successor, Kamala Harris. Certainly her rival, Donald Trump, smells an opportunity to tar her with the same brush of chaos.
