Online hate is spilling into the real world, AFP warns
AFP Commissioner KrissyBarrett began her late-night appearance at the Senate estimates hearing noting “a heaviness that hangs across Australia” after the alleged attack on independent MP HelenHaines.
Lone actors are being motivated by a convergence of personal grievances, mental health vulnerabilities and ideological concerns …
What helped keep us safe in recent times, such as our geography, analogue systems and far away criminals, has been impacted by fully integrated technology, social media and artificial intelligence.
We hear about the devastating impacts of racism from communities every day. But many experiences go unreported or uncounted, and our systems often do not capture the full picture.
This is not about collecting more data to prove racism exists. We already know it does. It is about making inequality visible, holding institutions to account and giving communities greater agency over their data to drive real change.
The EU plans ‘massive’ investment in Australia’s critical minerals sector as it seeks to make Canberra a major partner in reducing the bloc’s current reliance on China.
“Since we wish to diversify away from China, then one of the most likely partners has to be Australia,” said the EU’s ambassador to Australia, Lawrence Meredith, who added that the bloc’s security and defence partnership, agreed with Canberra earlier this year, also relies on co-operation on critical minerals.
Speaking at the International Mining and Resources Conference in Sydney on Tuesday (27 October) Meredith said that the bloc would be “massively investing in critical minerals.”
EU and Australian trade officials are currently working on a bilateral trade agreement, with a view to concluding negotiations in early 2027, and a Memorandum of Understanding on critical minerals access is set to be part of it.
Australian officials appear eager to partner with the EU.
On Tuesday, Australia’s resources minister Madeline King said that it would revamp its own critical minerals strategy to put greater emphasis on refining and processing in an attempt to curb China’s dominance.
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Hello and welcome to another edition of Free Agent! It's a great day to pour a Miller Lite out.
Let's talk about the NFL invasion of Australia and, soon, Japan. Is it the real deal or is something else at play? Then we'll close with the results of our reader survey about the World Series.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R–Texas) got booed when he presented the winners trophy at the Formula 1 race in Austin, Texas. Local politicians presenting these trophies has always been my least favorite part of F1.
After committing billions of dollars to a new football stadium, plus renovations for an arena and a baseball park, some D.C. politicians now wants taxpayers to spend $300 million on more seats and a roof for a soccer field that opened less than a decade ago.
The NFL's Push Into Australia and Japan Makes No Sense
Football in Europe is one thing—football in East Asia and Australia is another.
After the NFL played its first regular season game in Australia in Week 1, Commissioner Roger Goodell now says the league may double-down on working its way into East Asia and Australia. "Tokyo is clearly on our list, whether it's next year or the year after," Goodell told NFL Daily. "It's coming at some point in the near future." Another league administrator said they're considering a 10th international game next year, up from nine this year. The idea, one might think, is that by playing a game in Australia, Japan, or any other country, people with a tepid interest in the NFL become swarms of dedicated fans.
It won't work—at least not in the Eastern Hemisphere. The league is much too dedicated to the Eastern Time Zone for it to work. Consider the NFL's main kickoff times (the end of daylight saving time will soon alter these slightly).
Thursday Night Football: 8:15 p.m. Eastern, 9:15 a.m. Friday in Tokyo, 11:15 a.m. Friday in Sydney.
Sunday early afternoon: 1 p.m. Eastern, 2 a.m. Monday in Tokyo, 4 a.m. in Sydney.
Sunday late afternoon: 4:25 p.m. Eastern, 5:25 a.m. Monday in Tokyo, 7:25 a.m. in Sydney.
Sunday Night Football: 8:20 p.m. Eastern, 9:20 a.m. Monday in Tokyo, 11:20 a.m. in Sydney.
And so on for Monday Night Football.
Even the Super Bowl, the league's biggest event that we're always told is watched by millions of people in every country around the world, kicks off around 6:30 p.m. Eastern. That's 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning workday in Tokyo and 9:30 a.m. in Sydney. You'd have to be an American expat or an extremely dedicated foreign fan to watch—they exist, to be sure, but they're notable because they're a rarity (like my man @KoreaPistonsFan).
This is not like how American sports fans wake up on a weekend morning with nothing else going on and tune into European soccer matches—the NFL is hoping people will wake up in the middle of the night for an East Coast afternoon game, or tune in during their workdays for what we in the U.S. would consider a primetime matchup. (In Japan, watching every week appears to require an expensive subscription, whereas Australians at least seem to bundle many of the games into other packages like Disney+.)
Ask yourself: Are you frequently waking up at odd hours to watch the Australian Football League or J1 League soccer? Are you watching your favorite sports team in the middle of the workday? OK fine, if you work a flexible desk job like me, you might be tuning in for your baseball team's day games or throwing a golf major on your second screen. When I posted about this on X, people angrilyresponded that Japanese fans routinely watch baseball during the day—OK, fine, call me when the NFL gets its Shohei Ohtani.
But I'm not getting up at 2 a.m. to willingly start watching a sporting event, unless I'm studying abroad in London and the Tigers are in the playoffs for the second time in my life. While I don't miss a Formula 1 race, when they're on in the middle of the night I watch the next day—sometimes, but not always, without seeing any spoilers online.
The NFL will almost certainly sell out a game in Tokyo, but tickets aren't where the real money comes from, it's TV revenue they're chasing. That, and the 8:35 p.m. Eastern kickoff time for this season's Australia game (10:35 a.m. local, Friday), tell you who the real audience is.
It's you, my humble American friends.
The novelty of games in London and Germany is wearing off. The NFL thinks it can throw a game in Japan, sell it to Netflix for $100+ million, and then, most importantly, put it in primetime for the American East Coast.
The NFL might be hoping their football games in Australia and, soon, Japan, will create broader interest from those countries. What they're almost certainly more interested in is getting U.S. fans to watch another primetime game that the league can make hundreds of millions of dollars from in TV rights.
Readers Want a Brewers World Series Victory. Here's Why.
A lot of you must be pretty pleased with how baseball is going. About 70 percent of you said you're rooting for the Milwaukee Brewers, who now have a 3–0 lead in the World Series after battering the Tampa Bay Rays 10–1 on Monday night.
I, for one, am also rooting for the Brewers but had at least hoped for the teams to make it a little more interesting (at least Game 1 and Game 2 were close!). Both teams have managed to find pretty consistent success in recent seasons and "deserve" to be here, despite both being in fairly small markets and often up against more well-funded divisional opposition. Both, unfortunately, play in stadiums that are for some reason fully or partially owned by local government. But the Brewers, unlike the Rays, have good vibes, a great color scheme (I'm a sucker for navy–yellow/gold), and a strong fan base that deserves happiness.
The survey answers behind the Brewers were wide-ranging, from "The beer and cheese are better!" to "Beer. The answer is always beer." (Shoutout to whoever said "Channeling my inner Sarah Palin, I can see Milwaukee across Lake Michigan from my house in Grand Haven.") Several more said they are from Milwaukee, are from the Midwest, are just glad the Brewers beat the Dodgers, or think a "northern" team should win. A couple Red Sox fans chimed in to say they just hate the Rays.
The Rays, to be fair, might be seen as less objectionable because they have fewer fans to annoy everyone else with their success. No one, I assume, is climbing any street poles to celebrate if the Rays win the World Series (we may never know!). But we did get a few Tampa locals to chime in, and a couple Brewers haters, and one person who I sympathize with: "I have a dear friend who has been a Tampa Bay fan since the very beginning. She deserves a victory." Seems like she will be waiting at least one year longer.
The Brewers seem almost certain to be World Series champions going into what will likely be a brutal MLB lockout. Let us hope there are no games lost—any 2027 World Series champion is better than no champion, or season, at all.
Replay of the Week
Keep your eye on No. 5 car. Drivers don't usually go from 1st to 11th to 1st all in the span of one lap! (And since everyone turned out all right, you can also enjoy the carnage of this big crash.)
Canberra, 27 oct (Prensa Latina) La Dirección Australiana de Señales (ASD) informó hoy que registró mil 524 incidentes de ciberseguridad en 2025-2026 en este país oceánico, un aumento del 21,6 por ciento respecto al año anterior.
Financier linked to Case 1000 says payments unrelated to PM’s trial; payments began weeks after pair renewed contact and lasted for 2 years, Sydney Morning Herald says
Andre McKechnie who is serving a life sentence for murder in the southern Australian state of Victoria, took his battle for the spread to the Supreme Court last year.
Andre McKechnie who is serving a life sentence for murder in the southern Australian state of Victoria, took his battle for the spread to the Supreme Court last year.
Nos 3 anos da AIMA, o secretário de Estado adjunto da Presidência e da Imigração diz que país segue moderado na imigração. Ainda, mau tempo cancela MotoGP na Austrália.
From beaches to old-growth forests, wind farms are destroying the environment in the name of saving it, says Sandra Bourke. Greens are turning their backs as reckless renewables industrialise the natural world.
The Pentagon has designated cultural programs linked to China’s Confucius Institute as a national security threat, according to US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He claims that the centers, which largely offer Chinese language courses on American college and university campuses, serve as a front for Beijing’s “propaganda” campaign – an allegation Chinese officials have previously denied.
In a video posted on Facebook on Friday, Hegseth said that while the US Congress had previously “banned” the Confucius Institutes from American educational institutions, they “came back disguised in new forms” and under new names.
Hegseth was apparently referring to several measures passed by Congress in recent years that stripped universities that hosted Confucius Institutes of federal funding. The pressure from the lawmakers has led to the closure of multiple centers on US soil.
According to Hegseth, over the past two months, the Department of War has “systematically dismantled” 80 new Chinese-backed cultural centers across 30 universities, adding “these sleeper organizations to our list of institutions that threaten our national security.”
The official alleged that the targeted entities had sought to “steal intellectual property and to infiltrate the minds of American students,” but stopped short of providing any concrete evidence.
Back in 2020, the US Department of State designated Confucius Institutes as a “foreign mission of the People’s Republic of China,” requiring the institutions to regularly provide information regarding their Chinese personnel, recruitment, funding, and operations to the US government. The US Department of State characterized the China-funded cultural centers as “part of Beijing’s multifaceted propaganda efforts.”
Later that year, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo alleged that the centers were working to recruit “spies and collaborators” at US colleges, and expressed hope that “we will get them all closed out.”
China’s Foreign Ministry at the time accused Pompeo of deliberately undermining cultural and educational exchanges “by discrediting Confucius Institutes… [out of] ideological bias and political expediency.”
Beijing urged Washington to “abandon the Cold War zero-sum mentality… [and to] stop interfering with normal people-to-people and cultural exchanges.”
Confucius Institutes have similarly come under government pressure in several other Western countries in recent years.
Last year, Australian media reported that six local universities had shut down Beijing-backed cultural centers amid government scrutiny, reducing the number of such entities in the country by half.
In 2020, several media outlets, including The Times, claimed that Sweden had become the first European nation to close all Confucius Institutes and related classrooms.
Haines, de 65 anos, foi atropelada, na segunda-feira, por um veículo nas proximidades do gabinete na cidade de Wangaratta. Polícia investiga possível ataque
Polícia australiana indicou que um homem de 56 anos foi detido na quarta-feira após ter proferido ameaças e brandido um par de matracas, no gabinete parlamentar da deputada Hannah Beazle.
O incidente ocorreu depois da deputada independente Helen Haines ter sido atropelada, na segunda-feira, por um veículo nas proximidades do gabinete na cidade de Wangaratta
Deputada australiana Helen Haines teve as duas pernas amputadas, após ser deliberadamente atropelada por um homem em Victoria. Médicos tentaram salvar a perna direita, mas sem sucesso.
Helen Haines continua em estado crítico no hospital Alfred, em Melbourne, para onde foi levada de helicóptero após o atropelamento, na segunda-feira, em Wangaratta, no sudeste da Austrália.
Um homem de 43 anos foi detido após atropelar a deputada Helen Haines à porta do seu gabinete em Wangaratta. Primeiro-ministro fala em "ataque", mas diz ser "demasiado cedo" para determinar motivação.
Successive Australian governments have reacted with alarm at China’s influence-building activities in Southeast Asia and the Pacific. They have passed foreign interference laws, tightened foreign investment regulations, and regulated university collaborations with institutions overseas. They have executed a Pacific Step-Up and a plan for greater trade and investment with Southeast Asia. And they have tightened […]
A rare newborn lamb, valued at up to $25,000, has gone missing from a farm in the Adelaide Hills, Australia. The owners suspect the animal may have been stolen. This is reported by ABC. Veterinarian and farm owner Madeleine Babos stated that the lamb was born last week but disappeared a few days later. She […]
SYDNEY, Oct 18 (Reuters) – Woodside WDS.AX said operations remained paused on Sunday at a floating production unit, part of its $12.5 ?billion Scarborough natural gas project off the coast ?of Western Australia, due...
The recently concluded trilateral “Orient Shield” exercises in Japan became the first three-way maneuvers involving Washington, Tokyo, and Canberra in which the “Typhon” medium-range missile system was employed. How are the United States and its allies pushing the world toward the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)? The Land of the Rising WMD Proliferation […]
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