Many of the foundations that have underpinned Australia's security, prosperity and democracy are being tested: social cohesion is eroding, trust in institutions is declining, intolerance is growing, even truth itself is being undermined by conspiracy, mis- and disinformation.
Retired Army Special Forces officer Mike Nelson criticized Hegseth's rhetoric, stating, 'That's a necessary end to achieve goals through military force - you have to kill people to achieve them. That's not the end. It's a weird obsession with death for the sake of it.'
His first wife wasn't in the CIA, and didn't know he worked for the government agency. He couldn't tell her where he'd actually been that day or why he'd sometimes come home late. Even harmless details he couldn't share with her, he said. He'd come home, and she'd ask how his day was, what he'd done, and who he'd interacted with, and he recalled only giving one-word answers like "great," "nothing," and "nobody."
On TikTok, the war against Iran began with a series of videos from influencer types in Dubai, Doha, and elsewhere in the Middle East. They sat on restaurant patios or on hotel-room balconies and pointed their phone cameras skyward to document missiles flying through the air of their respective cities, then disappearing into puffs of smoke as they were shot down.
Russian military intelligence is recruiting young people online to carry out arson and other acts of sabotage across Europe. In this week's issue, Joshua Yaffa reports on the Kremlin's secret campaign to undermine the West's support for Ukraine-and breaks down how "single-use agents" are being deployed across the Continent. Some of their missions are small-putting up posters, or picking up a package-while others involve physical attacks, for example setting off explosives and starting fires.
I was giving these scenarios, these Golden Dome scenarios, and so on. And he's like, 'Just call me if you need another exception.' And I'm like, 'But what if the balloon's going up at that moment and it's like a decisive action we have to take? I'm not going to call you to do something. It's not rational.'
Dear Secretary Pete Hegseth, I realize that this is a big ask, but would you please invade and take possession of my son and daughter-in-law's apartment? Or maybe you'd like to make them an offer first? Either way, as a concerned mother and patriot who believes that national security begins at home, I feel it's my duty to let you know that Otis and Luna, the co-dictators of Unit 4-C, at 439 Bergen Street, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, must be overthrown.
The scam typically involves state-backed fraudsters applying for remote IT work in the west, using fake identities and the help of facilitators in the country where the company targeted is based. Once hired, they send their wages back to Kim Jong-un's state and have even been known to threaten to release sensitive company data after being fired.
When the user asks "What enemy military unit is in the region?" the AIP Assistant guesses that it's "likely an armor attack battalion based on the pattern of the equipment." This prompts the analyst to request a MQ-9 Reaper drone to survey the scene. They then ask the AIP Assistant to "generate 3 courses of action to target this enemy equipment," and within moments, the assistant suggests attacking the unit with either an "air asset," a "long range artillery," or a "tactical team."
They will normally say: All right then, bye. My gran died when I was about 18, and I was sad, of course, but in terms of tears there was nothing, no water. I never cried at movies. I didn't cry on my wedding day, nor at the birth of either of my daughters. It never alarmed me. I actually thought I might have underactive tear glands.
A double agent, by contrast, is an intelligence asset who is knowingly and deliberately directed by one service to engage another in espionage. The controlling service uses that agent to feed information (called feed material) -true, false, or mixed-to the adversary. They do so to simultaneously study the adversary's tradecraft, collection priorities, and decision-making. In the Russian system, double agents also serve a bureaucratic function: they generate statistics, "success stories," and operational narratives that demonstrate effectiveness to political overseers and ultimately to Putin himself.
Over the past year, waves of federal layoffs have left thousands of government employees and contractor clients suddenly out of work. For foreign intelligence services, that disruption has opened new opportunities. With more former U.S. officials seeking employment or freelance work - often in specialized national security fields - adversaries, namely China, have stepped in, posing as consulting firms, research groups and recruiters.
Claude, the AI model developed by Anthropic, was used by the US military during its operation to kidnap Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, the Wall Street Journal revealed on Saturday, a high-profile example of how the US defence department is using artificial intelligence in its operations.
A short while later, the White House posted the same photo - except that version had been digitally altered to darken Armstrong's skin and rearrange her facial features to make it appear she was sobbing or distraught. The Guardian one of many media outlets to report on this image manipulation, created a handy slider graphic to help viewers see clearly how the photo had been changed.
