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The killing in the city of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfur region is so brutal and widespread that bloodstains on the ground can be seen from space. For a year and a half, a militia group called the RSF has been attacking the city – and last, week it fell, resulting in the mass slaughter of civilians. In the past two years, 12 million people in Sudan have fled their homes – and more...

Last week, Donald Trump instructed the Pentagon to “immediately” resume US nuclear weapons testing. The order breaks with more than three decades of protocol for the United States – justified, according to the president, by the actions of China and Russia. And as these nuclear-armed powers expand and modernise their arsenals, countries closer to Australia are openly debating whet...

Recently, the creators of ChatGPT have made a surprising announcement: erotica is coming to the world’s most popular AI platform.  It’s the latest step in a transformation of the internet —  where artificial intelligence is shaping not just what we read or search, but how we think, feel and even form relationships. Today, associate editor for  Crikey Cam Wilson, on...

Last week, trans teenagers in Queensland and their families had a short moment of joy: the supreme court overturned the state government’s ban on gender affirming care. The judge found the decision to stop children from accessing puberty blockers was done without proper consultation. He found that the ban had been rushed through without giving medical professionals warning – or a chanc...

Some childcare centres in Australia are so understaffed that children are left alone for hours. Other centres spend less than a dollar a day on feeding them. Yet the industry receives billions in public subsidies and dodgy centres are allowed to keep operating even after serious breaches.  What’s emerging is a picture of a broken childcare system – one where regulators aren’...

Back in 2023, Australia’s top court made a landmark ruling: it was against the law for the Australian government to indefinitely hold people in immigration detention. That ruling had massive implications for our country’s border policies. It overturned 20 years of precedent – and it led to the release of people into the community who had been held in immigration detention after h...

Murray Watt has talked a big game about fixing our environment laws by the end of the year. But this week, the government’s attempt to do that fell apart – with the crossbench and Coalition senators refusing to back the changes. At the same time, Labor faced a dramatic revolt in the Senate over its refusal to release a secret report meant to fix the culture of cronyism – and jobs...

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have met face-to-face for the first time in six years.  The meeting, on the sidelines of the APEC summit, comes at a time of deep tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Tariffs are soaring, critical minerals are being weaponised and the battle over tech dominance is reshaping global supply chains.  Trump likes quick wins, while Xi likes play...

Anthony Albanese’s $13 billion critical minerals deal with Donald Trump has been touted as a huge win – one that strengthens our relationship with our most powerful ally – and delivers massive US investment in our national interest. But while Australia and the US talk it up as a blow to China’s stranglehold on these important commodities, questions remain about the cost: to...

Tech giants have invested billions into AI – and are looking for ways to get a return.  So when Microsoft offered its customers its new AI function “co-pilot” recently, it told them they’d need to pay a higher price for their subscription – or cancel. AI was now part of the deal, whether they wanted it or not. Except it wasn't. Now, the ACCC is suing Microsoft &n...

When Joshua Brown was arrested for allegedly abusing children at childcare centers across Melbourne, it exposed a horrifying reality: patchwork regulation and an understaffed, profit-driven industry is failing children. Months on, as state and federal governments try to deal with the fallout – and as the Albanese government pumps record investment into the early childhood sector – expe...

The National Anti-Corruption Commission has over 200 employees, an annual budget of $60 million, and has received more than 5,000 referrals. It also hasn’t made a single major corruption finding in the two years it’s been operating. And adding to questions around performance and credibility, it was recently revealed that the NACC’s Chief Commissioner, Paul Brereton, has been cons...

When Anthony Albanese met with Donald Trump, the two leaders cut a deal on critical minerals worth $13 billion. And as we settle into a new phase of the relationship with our most important ally – this is Australia’s crucial bargaining chip, as the US tries to break China’s grip on the supply chain of critical minerals. China’s global domination has been in the works for de...

Barnaby Joyce has announced he would not recontest his seat of New England, saying his “relationship with the leadership of the Nationals in Canberra has unfortunately, like a sadness in some marriages, irreparably broken down”. People are now guessing whether his flirtation with One Nation will turn into marriage. So does the former Nationals leader belong in Pauline Hanson’s pa...

“We are in this together… we’ll play some more soon.” That’s what Prince Andrew wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in 2011 – the day after a photo of Andrew with accuser Virginia Giuffre hit the papers. The email undercuts the prince’s claim that the two had cut ties in 2010, and is part of a new stream of documents surfacing as US Congress releases tens of thousan...

When Professor Christian Downie appeared before a Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation, he warned that Australia is facing coordinated campaigns designed not to debate climate solutions, but to stall them. Professor Downie has spent years inside boardrooms and the lobbying world studying how these campaigns are built – tracing the billions spent on messaging by lobby groups,...

Anthony Albanese was so chuffed with his meeting with US President Donald Trump that the prime minister joked he’d use Trump’s endorsement in his next campaign ads. While Trump is used to a procession of world leaders coming through his door, there was more at stake for Albanese, who is trying to manage an increasingly difficult relationship. In the end, the two leaders struck a major...

When Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin in Alaska back in August, he rolled out the red carpet, talked up his ability to end the war, but ultimately came away with no deal. Now, high off his recent Middle East peace deal, Trump is saying he’s “gotta get Russia done”. He met with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky last week – and he’s preparing another face-to-face wi...

Charlie Lewis writes about politics for Crikey .  He’s been a close observer of Tony Abbott – from his time as a Liberal Party bomb thrower, to his face-offs with Julia Gillard, to his short ‘Prince Philip-themed’ time as prime minister. Now, Charlie’s tracking Abbott’s political afterlife: which brings him to Sydney’s affluent Northern Beaches, and t...

From afar, Alice Springs is a whirlpool of myth and truth. A town with competing interests and few solutions, marked by chaos and decades of government overreach.  That all came to a head earlier last year, with what’s been described as a “youth riot” in town. The violence led to the Northern Territory government imposing an emergency curfew.  This is when the headlines...

Police are everywhere in Alice Springs. You see them driving pursuit vehicles and caged vans on the streets, or stationed outside the bottle shop checking IDs. But more police doesn’t mean less crime – it just means more people are getting locked up. As Alice Springs reels from the police shooting of Warlpiri teenager Kumanjayi Walker, and in the wake of an apology from the Northern Te...

Alice Springs is littered with “For Sale” signs as those who can afford it are packing up and leaving. Punitive government curfews made daily life more challenging, and families struggle to see a future for themselves if things continue the way they are. With the Country Liberal Party elected on a promise to be even tougher on crime – and lowering the age of criminal responsibili...

This week, the federal government dramatically re-wrote its signature tax policy.  The changes mean that a small section of people with very high super balances will pay less tax. That backflip has big consequences – for the government's budget, and for its commitment to addressing wealth inequality in this country.  Today, press gallery journalist Paul Bongiorno, on why the govern...

The Australian Parliament Sports Club has been attracting a lot of unwanted attention lately – for registering as a lobbying group, accepting sponsorship from the gambling lobby, and for kicking out ex-Wallabies captain David Pocock for having a problem with all that. Daanyal Saeed is Crikey’s media reporter and he broke the story in the first place. Since then, he’s been followi...

In a desert camp in northeast Syria, behind razor wire, with thousands of other people, live 12 Australian women and 25 Australian children. They are the wives and children of men who went to Syria to join ISIS. With Australia unwilling to help bring them home, they’re living in danger – and in limbo. The recent arrival of two women and four children who smuggled themselves out of a Sy...