Blogotariat

The increased use of private military companies to wage covert warfare is here to stay. Valère Llobet takes a look at a sector that's not affected by the crisis.

While mercenary work is arguably the second oldest profession in the world, the emergence of private military companies (PMCs) is more recent.

Over and over, U.S. government officials and their mainstream media allies called Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine an “unprovoked attack.” The slogan became so overused that people began to ask the obvious question: Why do they protest so much?

Anthony Albanese will hold power as prime minister after leading Labor to an extraordinary victory at the federal election and driving Peter Dutton to the brink of defeat in his home seat.

A significant swing to Labor in more than a dozen seats put Labor in position to increase its majority in parliament, with some supporters calling the results a landslide.

It is a beautiful, cool, sunny, Saturday morning in Canberra, and my partner and I just walked the few hundred metres to the local school hall to vote in the federal election, both for the House of Representatives and for half of the Senate. Federal and state elections are always held on Saturdays in Australia and voting is compulsory. The House of Representatives is voted on in its entirety every 3 years while the Senate is voted on every 6 years, with half of them facing the voters at the same time as the House of Representatives does.

"The legitimacy of the leadership depends on what that country thinks of its leaders. When we lay off, more and more Iranians tend to be critical of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The more abusive we are and the more pressure we put on them, the more nationalism fuses with fundamentalism in Iran."

- Zbigniew Brzezinski  

The Stakes of Donald Trump’s Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of Iranby Thierry Meyssan

Australians are about to be jilted. There is a very widespread disenchantment and disillusionment with politics, the media, any given person being reported on or even doing the reporting, and a pervasive sense of ‘this country is increasingly stuffed’ on the streets. The issues at the core of that are issues which both mainstream sides

The post Everyday Australians the biggest election losers appeared first on MacroBusiness.

Polls have just opened on the east coast in today’s federal election.

I won’t be posting today, but you can discuss the election here.

I’ll put up another open thread at 6pm. I won’t be liveblogging tonight – I’ll be helping with the ABC’s election coverage. But I’ll be back on Sunday with some written analysis and a podcast.

Treasury chief Bessent says President Trump handed Zelensky "a royal flush" with the US-Ukraine mineral deal which he can use in negotiations with Russia, signalling that there's "no daylight between the Ukrainian people, the American people, between our goals." There's just one problem, experts say: the entire deal looks like a propaganda stunt.

International Reading: McDonald’s suffers worst U.S. sales decline since 2020, warns of ‘anti-American sentiment’ abroad – NBC McDonald’s Store Traffic Falls Unexpectedly As Diners Grow Uneasy About Economy – Huff Post Tim Cook says Trump tariffs could cost Apple more than $900M in June quarter – The Hill Trump’s tariffs: ‘It feels like Covid 2.0.

The post Weekend reading and media appearances appeared first on MacroBusiness.

The Trump administration is prepared to dedicate another 100 days to mediating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, US Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News in an interview published on Wednesday. He said the US has made progress by getting both sides to present their ideas for resolving the conflict.

The Driven's Sam Parkinson, Tanya Shukla, and Tim Eden discuss Gen Z's take on electric vehicles, what the refreshed Model Y has to offer, and the news of the week.

Whatever happens on election day, it’s certain that the Coalition’s promotion of nuclear power will cost it votes. It will probably cost the Coalition seats and may cost them the election. 

In what’s being called an Australian first, network company safely completes the transfer of an energised 500kV powerline in southwestern Victoria.