标签： Oceania

A high-stakes virtual diplomatic summit focused on the Strait of Hormuz will bring together more than 40 global leaders Wednesday night, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese set to take part in talks aimed at reopening the critical waterway and cementing regional peace after a months-long blockade.

Organized under the banner of the Strait of Hormuz Maritime Freedom of Navigation Initiative, the meeting is co-hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron and newly installed British Prime Minister Kier Starmer, who is currently in Paris to oversee the gathering. The summit is scheduled to kick off at 10:30 pm local time, with a clear policy agenda centered on long-term security for one of the world’s busiest global shipping chokepoints.

Notably, US President Donald Trump will not be in attendance, multiple Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports confirm. The absence comes amid open friction between Trump and the Australian government over his earlier blockade of the strait, during which he publicly slammed Australia for failing to back his actions.

“I’m not happy with Australia because they were not there when we asked them to be there,” Trump told reporters overnight. “They were not there, having to do with Hormuz. So I’m not happy, I’m not happy with them.”

Albanese pushed back on the criticism Friday, clarifying that his administration had not received any formal new requests for support from the White House. The prime minister also pointed to Trump’s own past remarks downplaying the need for allied assistance. “And indeed, President Trump has himself said that he has got this and he has made that position clear,” Albanese told reporters.

Trump has previously doubled down on this stance, writing on social media that the U.S. had achieved such overwhelming military success in the region that it “no longer ‘need,’ or desire” allies’ help — adding “WE NEVER DID!” for emphasis.

According to an official statement from the British Prime Minister’s office, tonight’s summit will prioritize two core goals: shoring up the fragile ceasefire that has paused active hostilities in the region, and laying the groundwork for the permanent, secure reopening of the strait’s shipping lanes.

“Discussions will also include supporting the vital work of the International Maritime Organisation, who will dial into the call, to ensure the safety of seafarers and vessels,” the statement continues. The release added that Starmer, who completed a tour of Gulf states last week, has prioritized aligning diplomatic, military and economic tools to protect the ceasefire and mitigate global energy and food price shocks that have driven up cost of living pressures worldwide since the blockade began.

Following tonight’s diplomatic gathering, a separate multinational military planning session is scheduled for next week at the UK’s Permanent Joint Headquarters in Northwood, where defense officials will work through operational details for long-term security deployments in the region.

A fragile 10-day ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon came into force at midnight local time on Thursday, marking a critical pause to weeks of cross-border conflict that has stoked fears of a wider regional war. The truce, brokered with U.S. mediation, comes hours after a deadly Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon and intense last-minute exchanges of fire along the border, leaving casualties on both sides.

Hours before the ceasefire deadline, an Israeli strike on the southern Lebanese town of Ghazieh killed at least seven people and wounded 33, according to Lebanon’s health ministry. Lebanese state media labeled the attack a “massacre against civilians”, with search and rescue operations still underway to pull survivors from rubble. In northern Israel, rocket fire from Hezbollah positions wounded two people, one seriously, in the towns of Karmiel and Nahariya, Israel’s national emergency service Magen David Adom confirmed.

Despite official warnings from the Lebanese army urging residents of southern Lebanon to avoid returning to their war-damaged homes, dozens of families loaded their belongings into packed cars and began traveling south along Lebanon’s coastal highway before dawn, crossing the remains of a bridge destroyed in earlier Israeli bombing as soon as sunrise broke.

The ceasefire agreement has drawn mixed official reactions across the region and globally. U.S. President Donald Trump, who announced the truce earlier this week, took to his Truth Social platform Thursday to urge Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah — which has fought Israeli forces along the border since launching rocket attacks in support of Iran last month — to uphold the pause in hostilities. “I hope Hezbollah acts nicely and well during this important period of time,” Trump wrote, adding that honoring the truce would be a “GREAT moment for them if they do. No more killing. Must finally have PEACE!” Trump also confirmed that the ceasefire explicitly includes Hezbollah, and announced he will invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun to the White House for diplomatic talks in the coming weeks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed the 10-day truce as a potential opening for a “historic peace agreement” with Beirut, but reaffirmed that the full disarmament of Hezbollah remains a non-negotiable precondition for any long-term deal. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam formally welcomed the ceasefire announcement, while a Hezbollah member of parliament told AFP that the group would respect the truce as long as Israel halts all attacks on its operatives — though Hezbollah has not issued an official formal statement endorsing the agreement. Iran, Hezbollah’s primary backer, also welcomed the truce. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei confirmed in a Telegram post via state news agency IRNA that the Lebanon ceasefire is part of a broader earlier ceasefire understanding between Iran and the U.S. mediated by Pakistan, agreed to pause the current wave of regional conflict.

On the Iranian nuclear front, Trump told reporters at the White House that Tehran has agreed to hand over its entire stockpile of enriched uranium, which the U.S. argues could be repurposed to build nuclear weapons. “They’ve agreed to give us back the nuclear dust,” Trump said, adding that Washington and Tehran are “close” to a final peace deal to end six weeks of open conflict.

In the first hours of the ceasefire, Lebanon’s army reported that “several Israeli acts of aggression” have already occurred, accusing Israel of violating the terms of the truce. The violations have raised new concerns that the fragile 10-day pause could collapse before it can pave the way for longer-term diplomatic talks to end the months-long border conflict.

Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Russian Kremlin has expanded its efforts to shape domestic public opinion from traditional offline spaces into the digital realm, with a new, targeted focus on cultivating a new generation of pro-war content creators. Through specialized youth camps and national competitions, teenage influencers are receiving formal training to spread the Kremlin’s hardline anti-Western narrative and build broader support for its military offensive across younger Russian demographics.

This ideological campaign is no grassroots initiative — it is directed from the very highest levels of the Russian government. In a 2023 televised press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly framed youth education as a core pillar of Russia’s national strategy, quoting 19th-century Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck to emphasize his priorities: “Wars are not won by generals, but by schoolteachers and parish priests.” He went on to stress that “educating young people in the spirit of patriotism is crucial” — a statement that laid out the clear mission of the nationwide youth outreach effort.

To carry out this mission, the Kremlin has revived and expanded Soviet-style state-aligned youth organizations, including the Young Army (known as Yunarmiya in Russian) and the Movement of the First. The Movement of the First alone claims 14 million online members and more than 1,100 regional projects across the country, giving the state extensive reach into teenage communities. At a Young Army content creation camp held in Moscow this past April, more than 120 teenagers dressed in matching green sweaters and red berets gathered for days of instruction from sitting soldiers and veteran state media journalists. Trainees learned core technical skills: how to shoot engaging short-form videos, leverage artificial intelligence for content production, and grow social media audiences to maximize their reach.

Vladislav Golovin, a former soldier who serves as chief of the Young Army’s general staff, framed the initiative as a values-building project. “We have created a huge team of kids, who understand how to broadcast government values and our organisation’s values,” he said in an official statement from the movement. Promotional footage from the camp shows teenagers cheering on a speed competition, where a cadet and Golovin raced to reload a sniper rifle — blending digital content training with explicit military-themed ideological engagement. Parallel to the Young Army camps, the Movement of the First runs national competitions that award prizes to teenagers who produce the top pro-Kremlin blogs and build the largest online followings for their content.

Independent analysts who study Russian disinformation and ideological strategy warn that this targeted campaign carries significant long-term risks. Keir Giles, director of the UK-based Conflict Studies Research Centre, describes the initiative as a “concentrated campaign to restore the prestige of the Russian military.” He notes that teenagers aged 14 to 16 currently growing up in Russia have never experienced any political system outside of Putin’s governance, making them particularly receptive to the state’s messaging. “This is their reality, and so we should not be surprised if these new efforts to spread information reflect that reality,” Giles explained to AFP.

Veronika Solopova, an artificial intelligence and disinformation researcher at the Technological University of Berlin, points out that social media platforms are uniquely suited to the Kremlin’s outreach goals. Platform algorithms are designed to deliver tailored content that sparks emotional engagement, creating an ideal environment for the state to push its narrative to young users. “Young people are famously easy to radicalise, easy to jump to conclusions on the nature of injustices, which, for Russia, is then all conveniently converted into army enrolments,” Solopova added.

Data from independent Russian pollster Levada Centre backs up the focus on social media: a March 2024 poll found that more than half of Russians between the ages of 18 and 24 rely on social media as their primary source of daily news. Giorgi Revishvili, a former Senior Advisor to the National Security Council of Georgia, argues that the format of short-form digital content is inherently well-suited to shaping youth opinion. Young people’s “shorter attention spans, combined with the effortless shareability of clips and reels, make digital content an exceptionally powerful tool,” Revishvili noted.

Dietmar Pichler, a disinformation and propaganda analyst at the European research network INVED, added that the content produced by these young influencers does not always take an overtly pro-war tone. Some content is “direct and radical,” while other pieces are “very subtle, aimed not at generating support for Russia, but at decreasing solidarity with Ukraine” among global audiences, he explained.

For the teenagers participating in the program, the training has already shaped their understanding of their own role in spreading the Kremlin’s message. In one promotional clip published by camp organizers, a female teenage trainee summed up the core of what she had learned: “When you are the one behind the camera filming the entire process, making audiences happy, you realise … you are the one who has aroused these emotions in people. The truth lies in a frame, and we are operating the camera.”