USA - Although the United States of America and Australia are a vast ocean apart, our core shared values mean that we often stand shoulder to shoulder through war, natural disasters and tragedy. Many people I have spoken to remain in shock, disbelief and tears over the assassination of Charlie Kirk. It is a reminder that speaking truth, particularly Biblical truth, is inherently dangerous in a world where truth sounds like hate to those who hate the truth.

UNITED NATIONS - US, Israel denounce the move for emboldening Hamas and harming the prospect of peace. The UN General Assembly (UNGA), currently in session, approved a resolution on Friday calling for an “irreversible” path toward a Palestinian state. The resolution was an endorsement of the “New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine,” adopted at an international conference in July at the UN headquarters in New York. Signed by the EU, the Arab League, and 17 other countries, the declaration called for an immediate end to the war in Gaza and supported the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission under a UN Security Council mandate. The conference was organized by France and Saudi Arabia and with a declaration “lays out a single roadmap to deliver the two-State solution” according to French UN Ambassador Jerome Bonnafont. Israeli UN Ambassador Danny Danon said “The only beneficiary is Hamas… When terrorists are the ones cheering, you are not advancing peace; you are advancing terror.”

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has firmly rejected the idea of Palestinian statehood at a moment it is being pushed in the UN General Assembly, declaring, "There will be no Palestinian state - this land belongs to us." His audience burst into loud applause, at a celebratory event marking a major housing deal in Ma'ale Adumim this week. The occasion was an "umbrella agreement" between the Israeli government and Ma'ale Adumim, which includes the planned development of the highly contested E1 area, a highly sensitive zone both Israel and the Palestinians recognize as geopolitically crucial to their futures. Construction in E1 would effectively sever the territorial continuity of a future Palestinian state, which has resulted in fierce condemnation from those who deem it an intentional and decisive blow to any two-state solution. Netanyahu's firm declaration that "there will be no Palestinian state" was a direct challenge on the ground to what's happening at the United Nations meeting in New York.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (DRC) - At least 89 Christians have been slaughtered by jihadists in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Open Doors, which monitors Christian persecution around the world, claimed some 70 were killed while worshiping at a funeral service, with the rest slain in the villages of Potodu and Ntoyo in the DRC’s North Kivu region. Many more villagers are missing. The US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant activities, told Reuters the death toll had approached 100. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) group, also known as Islamic State Central Africa Province, linked to ISIS — the same group that allegedly killed 49 Christians while they were praying for peace in a church in the DRC village of Komanda in July, and a further 66 earlier in Irumu. A local pastor, Rev Mbula Samaki, told an Open Doors partner from the scene: “They arrived and started killing. Those who tried to flee were shot dead, and others were killed with machetes.”

UK - Elon Musk was among the speakers at the "Unite the Kingdom" rally this afternoon. Addressing the crowd via video link, Musk criticised Keir Starmer's government for a "rapidly increasing erosion of Britain", calling for a "dissolution of Parliament". He said there was something "beautiful" about being British and said "the left is the party of murder", referencing the recent death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah. The owner of X said: "This is a message to the reasonable centre, the people who ordinarily wouldn't get involved in politics, who just want to live their lives. They don't want that, they're quiet, they just go about their business. My message is to them: if this continues, that violence is going to come to you, you will have no choice. You're in a fundamental situation here. Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that's the truth, I think." He added that the British public are "scared to exercise their free speech" and claimed the BBC was "complicit in the destruction of Britain".

EGYPT - Egypt is pushing to revive a NATO-style Arab military force for rapid defense in case of attacks. The proposal gains traction ahead of an Arab summit, with Cairo seeking regional support. London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is working to rebuild Arab backing for a rapid-reaction force that could deploy to protect any Arab state under attack, and said the proposal has been floated in recent diplomatic contacts ahead of the summit. The outlet framed the idea as a defensive umbrella rather than an escalation with Israel.

MIDDLE EAST - The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union and military alliance comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.

MIDDLE EAST - The United Arab Emirates condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "hostile remarks" against Qatar, adding that ANY ATTACK ON A GULF STATE IS AN ATTACK ON THE GULF'S "JOINED SECURITY SYSTEM," UAE official Afra Al Hameli said on Thursday. On Wednesday, Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or "bring them to justice, because if you don't, we will." Netanyahu's warning came a day after Israel attempted to kill Hamas political leaders in an airstrike on Doha, escalating its military campaign in the Middle East and prompting a flurry of international condemnations.

USA - I am devastated. I didn’t know him, but I’m devastated. Charlie Kirk was the Cicero of the Maga movement, energetically debating anywhere, anytime, a one-man campaign for the right to speak your mind. He was so utterly self-assured, he never looked vulnerable, but now I guess he was. Maybe we all are. The world is losing its mind. I thought, “this has to be more than a cultural war?” It’s spiritual. Consider that damaged soul who shot all those kids at the Annunciation Catholic School or the man who stabbed a woman on a train in North Carolina: whatever manifesto they stood on or medications they’d missed, they exuded the sulphuric air of someone oppressed by demons, as if an evil spirit is abroad in the land. We are in need of real leadership right now. We’ve had 20-odd years of weak men and bad men, cowards and charlatans, none capable of cooling things down or bringing people together.

USA - Charlie Kirk became one of Donald Trump’s closest allies by taking the Maga movement to university campuses and delighting in facing down liberal activists while picking apart their world views. More than that, the Turning Point USA founder is a key Trump world insider, close to anyone important within the inner circle and with the US president himself. It makes Kirk’s assassination on Wednesday at a university campus event in Utah a deeply personal affair for the president and his team. “The great, and even legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the president posted on Truth Social.

USA - Before the identity of the shooter was known, prominent right-wing figures were framing the incident as a part of a broader assault by the left against conservatism. "America has lost one of its greatest champions," White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. "All of us must now dedicate ourselves to defeating the evil that stole Charlie from this world." Laura Loomer, a MAGA loyalist who has Trump's ear, called for "cracking down on the Left with the full force of the government. Every single Left wing group that funds violent protests needs to be shut down and prosecuted. No mercy." Elon Musk, the X platform’s billionaire owner, was even more blunt. “The Left is the party of murder,” he wrote. “There’s no excuse for political violence in our country, it’s got to end,” said Steve Scalise, the Number 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, who survived being shot in 2017 at a congressional baseball practice. “It’s a problem that we’ve seen grow and it’s got to be addressed. It’s got to stop.”

UK - Starmer plunged into full-blown crisis as he is forced to sack Mandelson over 'disgusting' Epstein emails just 24 HOURS after backing him - and under a week since Angela Rayner quit. Keir Starmer is wrestling to contain a full-blown meltdown today after he was forced to sack Lord Mandelson as US ambassador. The PM finally acted after another cache of messages emerged from the peer to the notorious paedophile. The dramatic departure throws the government deeper into chaos, just a week before Donald Trump's state visit. It is less than a week since Angela Rayner was forced to resign over her tax affairs, amid claims the premier is 'lurching from crisis to crisis'. Sir Keir now faces mounting questions about his judgment, with even Labour MPs warning the party is 'stained at the very top'.

UK - One of the great tragedies of the way immigration policy has been debated in this country for years, if not decades, is that the conversation is mostly voiced in emotive rather than rational terms. Those who air fears about the flows of foreign-born people into the UK are dismissed as bigots (most famously by Gordon Brown). Those who argue that immigrants are good for the economy are dismissed as being deluded or blind to a mounting crisis. What do those numbers tell us? Well, the big picture is… big. The total flows of migrants coming into the country in recent years have been nothing short of astounding. While the figures have plateaued in the past 18 months or so, as of late 2023, immigration (which is to say, people coming to live here) was running at roughly 1.3 million people a year. Subtract those emigrating in that period (roughly 400,000), and that leaves you with net migration of nearly 900,000 people.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar and other nations that harbor terrorists to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don't, "we will." In his statement, Netanyahu reflected on the upcoming anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, saying, "Tomorrow is September 11th... On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery on American soil since the founding of the United States. We also have September 11th. We remember October 7th. On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery against the Jewish people since the Holocaust." Netanyahu: "Like with 9/11, we went after masterminds who committed October 7th." The prime minister said that after September 11, the US hunted down the terrorists who committed the crimes, and passed a resolution in the UN Security Council that stated that governments cannot harbor terrorists. "Yesterday, we acted along those lines. We went after the terrorist masterminds who committed the October 7th massacre," Netanyahu said.

EUROPE - Europe stands at a crossroads - one path leads to peace through diplomacy, the other to war through reckless militarization. As Germany signals a historic shift toward leading a European nuclear weapons program, recruiting France and Britain into a unified deterrent, the continent inches closer to a catastrophic confrontation with Russia. But who is the real aggressor here? Is Europe arming itself out of necessity, or is it fueling a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict?