标签： Oceania

On a historic day on Capitol Hill this week, two sitting US Supreme Court justices delivered unprecedented testimony before congressional spending panels, laying bare the escalating wave of intimidation targeting the nation’s highest judicial body while issuing a defiant commitment to uphold judicial independence amid a toxic political climate.

Liberal justice Elena Kagan and conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett — the first sitting Supreme Court justices to appear before Congress since 2019 — opened up about the unthinkable dangers that have become part of daily life for top US judges, as the judiciary requests hundreds of millions in additional security funding to counter growing risks.

Barrett, whose 2020 nomination to the court came from former President Donald Trump, shared a deeply personal anecdote that underscores the human cost of rising threats. In the weeks following the 2022 leak of the draft ruling that overturned the federal constitutional right to abortion, Barrett was provided with a bulletproof vest. When she set the protective gear down at home, her 12-year-old son found it, forcing her to explain the item and why she needed it. “I didn’t expect that performing the service was going to put me in the position of explaining to my children what a bulletproof vest was and why I had to wear one,” she told lawmakers.

Kagan echoed that gravity, noting that threats have reached alarming proximity for many members of the court. “For some of us, those threats have come very close, and all of us live with the knowledge that they may again materialize,” she said. Still, she reaffirmed the court’s core promise: “all members of the court can do their jobs as they believe legally right, adjudicating cases without fear or favor.”

This rare public appearance comes as the federal judiciary seeks a total of nearly $921 million in dedicated security funding to upgrade protections across federal courthouses and judicial facilities. The Supreme Court itself is requesting a $20.5 million annual increase to its budget, bringing its total security allocation request to $228.4 million. Of that increase, $14.6 million would go toward expanding the court’s specialized police force and upgrading building security, while $6.5 million would fund a new visitor screening facility on Supreme Court grounds. Kagan noted that current screening protocols leave gaps that put justices and staff at risk, saying “We are concerned about people coming into the building before they’ve been checked.”

Security data paints a stark picture of the crisis: House Appropriations Committee top Democrat Rosa DeLauro told attendees that US Marshals recorded 564 threats against federal judges last year, a 31 percent jump from the prior year that DeLauro called “deeply alarming.”

Barrett has direct experience with these threats: her private residence was targeted in a May swatting incident, where bad actors file a false emergency report to draw an armed police response to a target’s home. Last year, her sister’s South Carolina home was the subject of a bomb threat. The most high-profile recent plot targeting a justice unfolded in 2022, when an armed man from California traveled to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s residential neighborhood with plans to assassinate him. The assailant was ultimately arrested and later sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison.

The testimony comes on the heels of a divisive Supreme Court term that delivered a series of major rulings intersecting with former President Trump’s political agenda, including decisions blocking his attempt to end birthright citizenship and striking down his sweeping global tariffs. While Trump has praised the court’s conservative majority when it rules in his favor — most recently on a case granting him broad presidential immunity — he has repeatedly launched harsh public attacks on justices who rule against him. Chief Justice John Roberts warned earlier this year that escalating personal hostility toward sitting judges poses a grave danger to the judiciary, saying the trend “has got to stop.”

Despite the intense pressures and personal risks, both justices stressed that the court will continue to carry out its constitutional duty without bending to political intimidation, reaffirming that rulings will be based on law rather than outside pressure.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is launching a landmark, globally unprecedented coordinated national framework for artificial intelligence governance, headlined by the creation of a dedicated Office of Artificial Intelligence set to become effective Wednesday.

Amid a global scramble by nations to adapt to the rapid rise of disruptive generative AI, the Prime Minister will address a major media gathering in Sydney to outline the new whole-of-government approach, which centralizes scattered AI policy oversight into a single unit housed within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. Albanese will argue this unified structure makes Australia the first country in the world to bring all AI-related governance issues under one cohesive national framework.

The new office will collaborate across multiple government portfolios to deliver aligned policy and regulation. Industry Minister Tim Ayres and Assistant Minister Andrew Charlton will lead co-development of new national AI standards. Energy Minister Chris Bowen will coordinate with state and territorial governments and national energy market bodies on AI-related energy infrastructure needs. Attorney-General Michelle Rowland has already begun facilitating cross-stakeholder consultations on copyright protections for creators whose work may be used to train AI models, while Treasurer Jim Chalmers will oversee AI’s integration into national productivity growth agendas. Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth is engaging with employers, workers and trade unions to address AI’s shifting impact on workplaces, and Education Minister Jason Clare is working with education leaders to assess AI’s effects on primary and secondary schooling. This coordinated effort also covers ongoing work ranging from digital duty of care regulations and risks of AI chatbots to child safety, AI’s intersection with skills development and manufacturing, and critical national security and defence applications of AI.

Albanese is set to compare the coordinated national approach to past government responses to transformative technological shifts, including the rise of civil aviation in the 1920s and the boom in genetic research in the 1990s. He will note that a unified framework will boost Australia’s attractiveness to global investors by delivering clearer, faster approval processes and streamlined compliance verification, while also bringing much-needed accountability and coordination to government action. Prior to this reform, AI governance was handled on an ad-hoc, sector-by-sector basis across disparate ministries, a structure that no longer fits the cross-cutting nature of AI technology.

Wednesday’s announcement comes six months after the Albanese government released its initial national AI strategy, which set out goals to accelerate safe, responsible AI adoption across the Australian economy while putting critical safeguards in place. The launch arrives at a moment of growing national debate over the safe, fair and sovereign development of AI, as global adoption of generative tools accelerates at an unprecedented pace.

Earlier this month, a high-level delegation of Australian creative industry groups from music, literature and other creative sectors traveled to Canberra to push for strong copyright safeguards, opposing changes that would allow AI developers to scrape Australian copyrighted intellectual property without permission to train generative models. Current Australian copyright law already requires AI firms to obtain consent to use local creative works for model training, but independent Senator David Pocock recently raised concerns that the government was considering a copyright carve-out for AI companies in exchange for investment in local data center infrastructure – a claim the government has flatly denied. Australia’s news industry has also raised urgent alarms over widespread unauthorized scraping of journalistic content for AI model training. News Corp Australasia Executive Chairman Michael Miller warned last year that Australia risks eroding its national voice and identity if the government does not hold firm on copyright protections for local content.

Across the political spectrum, calls have grown for Australia to develop sovereign AI capability, including domestic AI models and local data center infrastructure, amid growing concerns over the outsized control that U.S. corporations and the U.S. government hold over the world’s most popular frontier AI models, including OpenAI’s GPT series and Anthropic’s Claude. Liberal frontbencher Andrew Hastie told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Monday that the AI revolution is already underway, and Australia must act to seize the benefits of the technology in the national interest rather than ceding control to foreign actors. Hastie argued that while major U.S. AI firms are already leading development of frontier models, Australia must build its own sovereign computing capability to avoid being entirely reliant on the “good grace of the United States” for AI access. He warned that in a scenario of global crisis or conflict, Australia’s AI capability could be cut off entirely due to reliance on undersea cables controlled by foreign powers, leaving the nation without agency over its own AI future.

Albanese is set to acknowledge these national security concerns, noting that this year’s updated National Defence Strategy identified AI and machine learning as the technologies carrying the most significant potential for disruptive change to global security in the coming years. He will point out that both non-state extremist groups and adversarial state actors already leverage AI to create targeted propaganda aimed at young people and spread disinformation designed to undermine democratic institutions. The Prime Minister will confirm that the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister are working closely with Australian security agencies and the country’s Five Eyes security partners to address these evolving threats.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett warned in a June address that AI is lowering the bar for criminals to target victims online, reducing the level of technical skill required to carry out cybercrimes and exploitation. She emphasized that as AI technology advances at an exponential rate, vulnerable groups including young people face the greatest risk of harm, noting that criminal actors are increasingly using AI chatbots to recruit underage victims and carry out exploitation.

The new national AI framework marks a major step forward for Australia as it navigates the dual opportunities and risks of one of the most transformative technological shifts of the 21st century, balancing efforts to attract investment and drive innovation with commitments to protect creators, vulnerable communities and national sovereignty.

Fresh large-scale military tensions have erupted across the Middle East after the United States launched a new wave of airstrikes against Iran this Tuesday, with former President Donald Trump committing to reimpose a full naval blockade on Iran’s ports along the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The escalation has triggered immediate retaliatory strikes from Tehran against US allies and interests in the region, sending oil prices soaring and throwing previously agreed ceasefire negotiations into deep crisis.

The five-hour US airstrike operation targeted multiple sites across Iran, including key coastal locations in Bushehr and Bandar Abbas. US military officials stated the mission was designed to “degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping” in the strategically critical waterway, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil supplies pass daily. An Agence France-Presse tally compiled from Iranian official statements and local media reports confirms that renewed US attacks launched over the past week have killed at least 28 people across Iran.

In direct response to the US strikes, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) launched a coordinated barrage of missiles and drones targeting Bahrain, striking a residential building used by US forces alongside other infrastructure sites. Bahrain’s government confirmed it intercepted multiple “treacherous aerial attacks” launched from Iran, and accused Tehran of intentionally targeting civilian sites after explosions and air raid sirens sounded across the capital Manama. Tehran also expanded retaliatory strikes to another key US regional ally, Jordan, whose military announced it successfully shot down four Iranian missiles launched toward its territory. The IRGC noted its attacks specifically targeted US personnel stationed at a Jordanian air base, and issued a call for the Jordanian public to demand the permanent removal of what it described as “occupying American bases” from the country. Iran has long maintained that it only targets US interests across the Gulf region, but a military command spokesman clarified that any collaboration with Washington by Gulf states will be formally classified as “an act of war” moving forward.

Alongside the airstrikes, Trump formally notified US Congress last week that the US has resumed full-scale military conflict against Iran, a step the White House confirmed to AFP. This notification grants the Pentagon an automatic 60-day extension of military operations in the region without requiring explicit congressional approval. In addition to the Strait of Hormuz blockade, Trump issued an extraordinary new threat against Iran’s nuclear program: he warned the US would destroy Pickaxe Mountain, a deeply buried site near Natanz that Western intelligence agencies suspect hosts an undeclared uranium enrichment facility. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump stated bluntly: “Tell the Iranians to be ready. Let them know we’re coming (and) there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.”

Trump’s blockade plan goes beyond cutting off Iranian ports: he announced the US will “take over” administration of the Strait of Hormuz and impose a 20% levy on all commercial cargo transiting the waterway. He wrote on his social platform Truth Social that the US would style itself “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT”, and claimed that while Iranian ports would be closed to traffic, “all other countries will have fair and open use of the strait”. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded to the proposal with sarcasm on social platform X, noting that Tehran agreed in principle that any entity guaranteeing safe passage should receive compensation, but argued 20% was far too high, quipping that Iran would charge a lower rate.

The immediate economic impact of rising tensions has already been felt in global energy markets: oil prices jumped more than 9% on Monday as investors priced in the risk of renewed conflict, and climbed a further 1% on Tuesday, extending losses for consumers and adding to global inflation pressures.

The Strait of Hormuz has been the central flashpoint in US-Iran tensions for months. Iran first imposed its own restrictions on traffic through the strait after joint US-Israel attacks in February, which prompted Washington to impose its initial blockade on Iran’s regional ports. Restrictions on both sides eased after the two parties reached a preliminary ceasefire agreement in June, which laid the groundwork for broader negotiations to end the conflict. However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei confirmed earlier this Monday that the June memorandum of understanding that forms the basis of peace talks is now “in crisis”. Baqaei warned that Iran would abandon its obligations under the deal if Washington did the same, but added that Tehran remains engaged in mediation talks with negotiators from Qatar, Pakistan and Oman to prevent further escalation.

Iran’s parliament has already begun drafting a new bill titled “the management of the Strait of Hormuz”, according to the head of the legislature’s security committee. Washington has long opposed any Iranian attempt to charge tolls for transit through the strait, a move that is generally prohibited under international law.

Despite the dramatic escalation of military action, Trump maintained Monday that a final deal to end the conflict with Iran remains achievable. Regional analysts warn that the escalation has significantly dimmed prospects for an imminent resolution. Bader Al-Saif, an associate fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, explained that the escalating exchanges of attacks will only delay progress toward a permanent peace agreement. “Both sides want to end the impasse on their own terms, and they are increasingly finding it difficult to do so,” he noted.

Maritime security officials added another layer of concern on Tuesday: the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency reported a second commercial tanker was struck by a missile while transiting the Strait of Hormuz near the Omani coast, marking the latest attack on commercial shipping in the waterway. The United Arab Emirates confirmed earlier that a recent Iranian strike on two commercial ships in the strait killed one crew member, bringing civilian casualties from the resumption of fighting into focus.