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Australian politics live: Lambie says AI companies ‘like dinosaurs in Jurassic Park testing fences’; Burke plans to get net overseas migration down
Source: The Guardian
Original reporting
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The Guardian
‘Anywhere, anytime’: Victoria police and PSOs to get random stop and search powers after Labor backflip
Premier Ben Carroll adopts Coalition’s stance on Jack’s Law, which gives police and PSOs power to randomly search people for knives with metal detectors The Victorian premie has made another policy backflip, announcing a re-elected Labor government would give police and protective services officers the power to stop and search people for knives using handheld metal detectors – despite experts warning of a lack of evidence the measure reduces violent crime. Ben Carroll on Wednesday announced he would match a commitment made by the Coalition opposition last year to introduce Queensland’s Jack’s Law , named after 17-year-old Jack Beasley, who was fatally stabbed in Surfers Paradise in 2019. Continue reading...
The Guardian
Slave-trade wealth was embedded in Britain’s financial system, research finds
Dozens of Bank of England directors and founding subscribers invested in trafficking of enslaved Africans The Bank of England and the British financial system were for centuries deeply involved in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people, according to new research on Britain’s slavery history. Research by historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders has found that the scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. The Bank of England, the central bank owned by the government since nationalisation by Clement Attlee’s Labour administration in 1946, had dozens of financiers involved in its foundation who were also significant investors in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. Continue reading...
The Guardian
People protecting nature and land set up self-defence units amid threat of murder
Defenders of forests and rivers killed at rate of one every three days in 2025, with 85% of deaths in Latin America Nature and land defenders were murdered at the rate of one every three days last year, prompting many communities to set up self-defence units, according to the latest annual death toll by the independent watchdog Global Witness. Organised crime groups or professional killers were implicated in more than a third of the 124 killings of defenders in 2025 as narco-trafficking activities overlapped with intrusions into indigenous territories and environmental crime, such as illegal logging and wildcat gold mining. Continue reading...
Al Jazeera
Gaza residential building collapses, six families reportedly trapped
Rescue crews in Gaza pull survivors from a collapsed building as cries for help echo beneath the rubble, witnesses say.
The Guardian
UK mathematician debunks myth around Parthenon’s optical illusions
Study challenges belief that temple’s curves were designed to correct optical illusions that would have ruined its clean lines A mathematician has uncovered what may be one of the longest-running myths in history after studying optical illusions and the Parthenon, the famed Greek temple that overlooks Athens. Scholars have marvelled at the building on the Acropolis hill for more than 2,000 years and heaped praise on its architects for their clever use of geometry. Its subtle curves are said to correct optical illusions that would have otherwise ruined the Parthenon’s clean lines. Continue reading...
The Guardian
Students in Gaza ‘devastated’ after plan for them to study in Belgium fails
Belgian government unable to agree on evacuation of 13 students to take up scholarships at universities Students who are unable to leave Gaza and take up scholarships at Belgian universities have said they are devastated after Belgium’s government hit deadlock on a plan enabling them to leave the war-torn territory. Ahmed Abujami, a 28-year-old doctor in Gaza, said he was “deeply disappointed” after Belgium’s five-party coalition government last Friday failed to agree on an evacuation plan for 13 students and researchers in the territory. Abujami has a scholarship to do a one-year master’s degree in public health at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. He hopes to gain skills and experience to rebuild Gaza’s shattered health system . Continue reading...