Author: Dr Nina Khaze
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus announced that more than 100 security experts from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) will work together in a permanent Joint Standing Operation. They will cooperate with overseas partner agencies (including Interpol and U.S.-based Federal Bureau of Investigation) to find culprits behind two massive cyber-attacks on Optus and Medibank, which affected more than 15 million customers. Cybercriminals who stole private information from millions of Australians, are now selling stolen data on the Dark Web, as the two companies refused to give into their ransom demands. Furthermore, the Australian Government might bring in…
The first trial of 3D crossings has just commenced in NSW, in Manly to be precise, where three 3D crossings have been installed for a trial period of six months in a 30km/h zone adjacent to the beach. With one French study in 2021 questioning its value-for-money practicability amid limited effect on drivers in the evaluated settings, the question to be asked is: will 3D crossings become a new—and exuberantly expensive—norm, or is their implementation just another wasteful use of taxpayers’ money? Higher installation and maintenance costs The tri-dimensional pedestrian crossing was presented as an innovative solution to improve road…
There is no formal adoption mechanism in Egypt, the most populous Arab country with a population of 107.8 million in 2022, where fostering options are only reserved for Muslim families. The case of a 4-year-old boy fostered by a Coptic Christian family in Egypt then forcibly removed by the state has reopened a debate about fostering rights by non-Muslims and Coptic Christians in this predominantly Muslim country with at least 10 per cent of non-Muslim population. Egypt’s Coptic Christians are now driving the social change by calling for an overhaul of the country’s fostering rights and adoption laws in light…
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is asking for an urgent international medical assistance after Islamist militants belonging to al-Shabaab (“The Youth”) terrorist organisation detonated twin car bombs on Saturday 29 October, killing over 100 and wounding more than 300 bystanders. Some of the victims included mothers with children in their arms. The main target of the latest terror strike was the Ministry of Education, but the second bomb detonated as medical personnel arrived to assist the victims. Five years ago, the same road junction was targeted in a terror strike which killed more than 500 people in the deadliest terror…
On 23 November 2022, it will be six months since Anthony Albanese was inaugurated Australia’s 31st Prime Minister—and 8th Labor Prime Minister (out of 18) since the Second World War. Past postwar Labor leaders included Queenslander Kevin Rudd, South Australian Julia Gillard, NSW-based Paul Keating, Victorian Bob Hawke, NSW-based Gough Whitlam, and NSW-based Ben Chifley. In his predecessors’ footsteps Albanese will walk, leap, and make new policy inroads, including towards Beijing and Taipei. But is it going to be a continuation of tit-for-tat diplomatic “wargames” (and Australia potentially becoming a target for Chinese nuclear torpedoes), or an era of renewed…
I first met Senator Kristina Kenneally over the phone in mid-January this year during international tennis superstar Novak Đoković’s Australian detention saga which shocked the world and hurt many Australian Serbs. It certainly made our Federal Court proceedings the most watched event on social media globally. I arranged a phone call with Senator Kenneally in her capacity of the then Home Affairs Opposition Spokesperson to convey the concerns expressed by the Australian Serbian community over Đoković’s unwarranted treatment in the Australian immigration detention—which dragged on for weeks. “I would put my bet on the Government’s case on this one”, she…