World

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on June 18, 2025 shows (L to R) a handout picture released by the official website of Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on March 12, 2025 depicting him during a meeting with Iranian students in Tehran; US President Donald Trump speaking to reporters about the G7 Summit aboard Air Force One while travelling back to Washington from Canada on June 16, 2025; and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu giving a news conference in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. Iran's supreme leader on June 18 described as

US Israel tensionsWorld9 minutes ago

‘Don’t ruin Trump’s reputation’ furious US warns Netanyahu

The White House has rebuked Israel over a strike that killed a Hamas commander, with Donald Trump saying they’d probe whether it violated the ceasefire.

Liz Jamieson

FILE - Jimmy Lai walks through the Stanley prison in Hong Kong, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Louise Delmotte, File)

World37 minutes ago

Trump urges Xi to release Hong Kong tycoon Jimmy Lai

US President voiced sadness over the Hong Kong pro-democracy media mogul’s conviction under national security laws, while Lai’s son said the UK government should insist on his father’s release as a condition of better relations with China.

AFP

Rob Reiner, Michele Singer, Romy Reiner, Nick Reiner, Maria Gilfillan and Jake Reiner at

CommentThe Times4 minutes ago

Rob Reiner told me he just wanted a happy home

The director of When Harry Met Sally and Spinal Tap said he was born lucky – and adored being a father. His tragic death is the wrong ending.

Hadley Freeman

Jake Reiner, from left, Romy Reiner and Nick Reiner attend the 41st Annual Chaplin Award Gala honoring their father Rob Reiner at Avery Fisher Hall on Monday, April 28, 2014 in New York. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

family tragedyWorld

Reiners had ‘furious row’ with troubled son before their murder

Rob and Michele Reiner were at their ‘wits’ end’ over their son’s mental illness and alleged substance abuse issues.

Kieran Southern

Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes, the former manager of INXS, with Michael Hutchence. Picture: Supplied.

Court battleThe Times20 minutes ago

INXS manager fights for share of mother’s $54m gift to ex-husband

Maria-Christina Copinger-Symes, who managed Australian band INXS, is estranged from her family, who made the gift to her British SAS major spouse after their divorce.

Jonathan Ames

World Commentary

COMMENTARY

We must learn from economic, security mistakes of Europe

Trump’s attack on Europe exposes a stark warning for Australia as we increasingly embrace their model and suffer the same economic stagnation that’s plagued the continent.

Alexander Downer

Contributor

COMMENTARY

Beijing’s Lai test: Will democracy go up in flames in HK?

A potential life sentence for newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai represents everything wrong with Hong Kong’s transformation from democracy beacon to authoritarian stronghold.

Rowan Callick

Contributor

COMMENTARY

Australia shouldn’t buy Beijing’s rewriting of history

History’s tragedies must be remembered. They must not be manipulated into tools of intimidation in the present.

Tomohiko Taniguchi

NEWS ANALYSIS

Myanmar war crime precedes sham ‘peace vote’

It is hard to imagine a more bloodless act of contempt by the Myanmar junta for its own population than the military’s direct bombing of a public hospital just before staggered sham elections.

Amanda Hodge

Asia-Pacific correspondent

COMMENTARY

It’s ‘erroneous’ to say Japan will break its peace commitment

Chinese claims about my nation’s defence policies are ‘unfortunate’ and inconsistent with the facts.

Kazuhiro Suzuki

COMMENTARY

Trump’s peace plan: A multibillion-dollar Russian prize

The US President’s repeated concessions to Vladimir Putin come as massive business deals await US companies in post-war Russia.

Cameron Stewart

Chief International Correspondent

Latest

america warnsWorldAn hour ago

WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 15: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) holds a press conference with families who lost loved ones in the January 29, 2025 DCA plane crash on December 15, 2025 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. The bipartisan press conference addressed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) language, which changes military airspace policy. Heather Diehl/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by Heather Diehl / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

Australia’s ‘tolerance of anti-Semitism resulted in massacre’

America’s pro-Israel voices sound a warning: Australia’s recognition of Palestine and tolerance of ‘globalise the Intifada’ chants have led to bloodshed at Bondi Beach.

Joe Kelly

Doctored speechThe TimesAn hour ago

US President Donald Trump speaks during a Mexican Border Defense Medal presentation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on December 15, 2025. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP)

Trump sues the BBC for $15bn over ‘fake news’

The British public broadcaster has apologised for a misleading edit of the president’s speech before the Capitol riot, which Trump said put ‘terrible words in my mouth’.

David Charter

peace talksThe Wall Street Journal

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky deliver a press conference at the Chancellery in Berlin, on December 15, 2025. Ukrainian President Zelensky travelled to Berlin to meet European leaders as well as the US President's envoy, the heads of the EU and NATO for talks on how to end the grinding war with Russia. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP)

‘Close to peace’; US offers Ukraine NATO-like security guarantee

The US has pledged to protect Ukraine from any future Russian attack, offering to support European security guarantees and seek Senate backing for Washington’s promised role.

Laurence Norman and Bertrand Benoit

‘effectively disabled’The Wall Street Journal25 minutes ago

Russian crew members get on board of the newly built

Ukraine claims naval first with underwater drone hit on Russian sub

Kyiv’s claim could herald a new front in naval warfare.

Alistair MacDonald

CommentaryThe Times

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - NewsWire Photos OCTOBER 9, 2023: ÃRally For A Free PalestineÃ protest burn the Israeli flag on the forecourt of The Sydney Opera House in Sydney following the recent outbreak of war between Israel and Palestine. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Jeremy Piper

West’s anti-Israel stance fuels global anti-Semitism

Unbeknownst to many well-meaning supporters of Palestinianism, street demonstrations are often a delirious expression of Islamist belief in defeating Jews and conquering the West.

Melanie Phillips

commentaryThe Times

Israelis light candles laid out in the shape of the Star of David, the day after after two gunmen shot and killed people gathered on Australia's Bondi beach for the start of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, in Jerusalem on December 15, 2025. Jews in Israel lit the year's first Hanukkah candles, mourning after gunmen opened fire on a Jewish gathering in Australia, killing 15 people and injuring 42 others. (Photo by ILIA YEFIMOVICH / AFP)

For the first time in my life, I feel fear lighting Hanukkah candles

The horrific attack on Bondi Beach shows that calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ are nothing less than an incitement to murder Jews.

Daniel Finkelstein

first public speechThe Times

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 15: MI6 Chief Blaise Metreweli makes her first public speech on December 15, 2025 in London, England. Blaise Metreweli took over as head of MI6, the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, on October 1. (Photo by Kirsty Wigglesworth - Pool / Getty Images)

Tech bros becoming as powerful as nations, warns new MI6 chief

Blaise Metreweli, in her first public speech as head of the intelligence agency, says the world is being remade by technology that was once the stuff of fiction.

Larisa Brown

family tragedyWorld

Reiners had ‘furious row’ with troubled son before their murder

Rob and Michele Reiner were at their ‘wits’ end’ over their son’s mental illness and alleged substance abuse issues.

Kieran Southern

commentaryCommentary

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND - JULY 13: In this handout image provided by New Zealand Police, collected firearms are seen at Riccarton Racecourse on July 13, 2019 in Christchurch, New Zealand. It is the first firearms collection event to be held in New Zealand following changes to gun laws, providing firearms owners the initial opportunity of many to hand-in prohibited firearms for buy-back and amnesty. The Christchurch event is one of 258 events that will run across the country over the next three months.The NZ Government will pay owners between 25 per cent and 95 per cent of a set base price, depending on condition. It will also compensate dealers and pay for some weapons to be modified to make them legal. The amnesty ends on December 20. (Photo by New Zealand Police/Getty Images)

PM’s cowardice: Gun control will be a wonderful distraction from actually tackling anti-Semitism

Every facile equivocation, every weasel word avoiding actions, now rings out like the heavens condemning the Albanese government.

Greg Sheridan

breakingThe Wall Street Journal

NEW YORK, NY - MAY 04: (L-R) Director Rob Reiner and his son Nick Reiner attend AOL Build Presents:

Rob Reiner’s son arrested

The Hollywood director and his wife Michele Singer Reiner were found stabbed to death Sunday in a Brentwood home.

Joseph De Avila and Laura J. Nelson

World

01-12-2025: Darcy Francesco Jenson appearing at the murder trial of Australian national Zivan Radmanovic at Denpasar District Court. He allegedly masterminded the attack on June 14 in Canggu and is facing a possible death sentence for premeditated murder. Picture: Miftachul Chusna.

‘My honesty is being twisted’: accused Bali hit mastermind

A plumber accused of orchestrating a point-blank execution in paradise insists he was an unwitting pawn manipulated by a mysterious Australia-based controller.

Dian Septiari

RADICALISATIONNation

Marawi city remains close to civilians since day one of the siege after armed group tried to occupy the only Islamic city in the country.

Killers made trip to ‘terror hotbed’

Police reveal the Bondi Beach attackers took a trip to terror hotspot The Philippines before launching their deadly assault on a Jewish Hanukkah event.

Amanda Hodge and Liam Mendes

World

TOPSHOT - Palestinian Hamas militants secure the area as Egyptian workers accompanied by members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) search for the remains of the last Israeli hostage in the Zeitoun neighbourhood of Gaza City on December 8, 2025. Qatar and Egypt, guarantors of the Gaza ceasefire, called for the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the deployment of an international stabilisation force as the necessary next steps in fully implementing the fragile agreement. The measures were spelt out in the US- and UN-backed peace plan that has largely halted fighting, though the warring parties have yet to agree on how to move forward from the deal's first phase. Its initial steps saw Israeli troops pull back behind a so-called

Hamas commander killed as Gaza slides toward civil war

An Israeli-backed militia in Gaza has claimed it has murdered a senior member of Hamas’s security forces, amid broadening tensions between the militants and rival clans.

Anne Barrowclough

Flood disasterWorld

A man wades through the mud as he carries a pump generator to clean houses at a flood-affected area in Meureudu, in Indonesia's Aceh province on December 14, 2025. Devastating floods and landslides have killed 1,006 people in Indonesia, rescuers said December 13 as the Southeast Asian nation grapples with the huge scale of relief efforts. (Photo by CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN / AFP)

Indonesia death toll tops 1000 amid fresh cyclone threat for Bali

Rescue efforts continue across three devastated provinces in the wake of the country’s worst natural disaster in decades, as a new cyclone builds off Bali.

Dian Septiari

Collision of crisesThe Wall Street Journal

The Thai Navy released footage of a Cambodian building being shelled.

Thai military bombs scam-linked Cambodia casinos

Thai forces have bombed casinos and hotels allegedly used for transnational cyberscams.

Gabriele Steinhauser

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world