Hamas' cultivation of Islamist extremism is ‘morally obtuse'
'They don't want to face up to what having their own state would mean, it would mean an end of claims on Israel, it would mean an end of hostility on Israel,' Mr Sheridan told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.
'It would mean the end of antisemitism in their official teaching.'
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The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Heba's days are spent thinking about a city on the other side of the world
Two cousins and her aunt are dead, and Heba Kassoua's grandfather's home has been burned to the ground. The 36-year-old Australian citizen lives and works in Parramatta but, over the past month, most of her days have been spent thinking about her family in Sweida, a city in southern Syria. Violence broke out in mid-July, one of the first major surges of conflict since dictator Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December. Clashes had been escalating between armed groups of Syrian Bedouin tribes and the militia representing the local Druze population, a religious minority native to the region, before the interim Syrian government had sent local security forces in and further inflamed the situation. Israel, which has its own Druze minority, launched air strikes on Sweida and Damascus, which it says were in support of the Druze. In addition to the more than 1500 people killed during the violence, about 349 of whom were executed according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the UN estimates more than 190,000 people have been displaced. A fragile ceasefire has mostly held since July 19. Five members of Kassoua's family – all Druze – are among the dead. Her aunt, Ghossen Kassoua, died after spending five days inside her sister's home in a village that came under attack. 'There wasn't anyone who could go out and get her medication [for a heart condition and diabetes],' Kassoua said. 'The doctors were either attending to the injured or couldn't do house calls and her condition got much worse. She ended up passing away while she was still in lockdown. She was dead and they couldn't even bury her until two days after.' More than 300 members of Australia's Druze community have written to the federal government pleading for Australian support for aid in the region. 'We are calling for the government to condemn the sectarian violence publicly and demand an independent investigation. We want humanitarian aid,' Kassoua said.
Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
Working from home hinders unique in-person collaboration, despite the 'fun' of zany zoom backgrounds and muted mics
The critics of Jacinta Allan's monstrous idea that there should be a right to work two days a week from home are getting distracted. They're attacking it on economic modelling or legal principles. Correct, but wrong. The true reason this idea should be fought with the intensity of 300 Spartans is because working from home is, and always has been, awful. I thought Australians agreed to leave everything we did in Covid behind in a group-enforced amnesia, but somehow 'working from home' has endured. We live in an age where we are both obsessed with maintaining a work/life balance, and also finding new ways to bring our work into the areas we devote to life. I'm not blind to the benefits. I am writing this article from home, outside my office hours. I'm currently wearing gym shorts and a winter coat for some reason, and whenever I want to procrastinate I can flick my television back over to Fox Footy. When I was working from home during Covid, I managed to both perform my work duties and lead Wycombe Wanderers to Premier League glory in the 2036 season while playing the 'Football Manager' video game. But today I can also acknowledge that if I were in the Sky News offices writing this article, I would be done by now. And the reason for that is simple - I am a human being, a social animal. Thousands of years of genetics has made me both crave and thrive within social settings - for example, a building containing people I know and share common ground with may be able to help me with information I need, and give me a chance to demonstrate value by sharing information with them. Coworkers, we might call them. An active environment makes me active. Instead I am in my living room not having said a word for hours, only reminded that an outside world exists every time my phone pings. But of course, this is where working from home advocates will refer to their substitution for person-to-person contact: the Zoom call. Yes, this game changing invention that finally answered the question we all had - how can I have all of my coworkers in my house at the same time? Now the person that you may delay going to the staff kitchen to avoid seeing is in your guest bedroom, and he's not impressed by your furniture. My wife's coworkers spend an hour a day in a room that, when friends come over, we don't include in the house tour. But Zoom calls are fun. Sometimes someone forgets to turn their microphone on - hilarious! - and sometimes someone comes in with a zany background - interesting! - but these classic moments don't come close to group conversations and the relationships forged by in-person connections. And those relationships are key, especially for young workers looking to establish themselves. What is better for someone starting out their professional journey - the coffee break in your kitchen, or the coffee break at the cafe with seasoned coworkers who can let the new person know how things 'really work' around the office? What about the first Friday night drink - in front of a television at home or in front of higher ups at the office giving you a chance to form a good reputation in front of them? Forget young workers. Which of those sound more meaningful for workers at any stage of their career? When we're all just an icon on Slack or Teams, it's hard to form any actual connections. The working from home revolution is often seen as workers reclaiming rights over their conditions from greedy corporate bosses, who would rather whip them into soulless concrete mausoleums so they can more effectively rule over them with an iron fist. But those same mausoleums help workers too. We aren't supposed to live in self-imposed silos, connecting with each other through pings and whoops and buzzes. We're supposed to talk, connect, share and impart face to face - it's literally what our genetics push us to do. That's why Jacinta Allan's idea must fail. Yes it's bad for the economy, yes it's legally unsound. But deeper than that is our society is running towards this concept of working that makes living less meaningful - just like how delivery apps are making nights out obsolete, or what dating apps are doing to spontaneous conversation. Technology's ability to provide immediate convenience is lulling people into thinking that it's a preferable lifestyle. Our phones, laptops and televisions are Soma pills the government didn't even need to manufacture. At the risk of accidentally plagarising the Unabomber's manifesto, we're letting technology drive us away from our natural state. So log off of Zoom, turn off Netflix and get back to the office and talk to someone. James Bolt is a contributor
Sky News AU
an hour ago
- Sky News AU
‘The truth eventually wins': Giggle for Girls CEO Sall Grover determined to continue fighting for women amid long legal battle
Giggle for Girls CEO Sall Grover has opened up about her 'exhausting' court appeal, and said she will continue fighting for the rights of women. Ms Grover is challenging a judgement which found she discriminated against transgender woman Roxanne Tickle after banning her from a women-only app. The court heard final submissions in the appeal on Wednesday, with an outcome likely to be passed down in the coming months. Speaking exclusively with Sky News host Danica De Giorgio on Friday, Ms Grover shared the toll fighting the judgment has had. 'I am exhausted, I'm angry, but I'm optimistic,' she said. 'The truth eventually wins.' Both parties had appealed the initial judgment, with Ms Tickle seeking an additional $40k in damages - up from her previously awarded $10k. Ms Tickle's legal team argued Ms Grover should pay the additional damages since the CEO misgendered her in up to 50 interviews, and laughed while responding to a question during cross-examinations. 'It's not an insult to call someone a man, nor am I saying it with any intent to cause harm or to be insulting, it just an objective, observable fact about reality,' Ms Grover said. 'If you're living in a free society, a man can call himself a woman, he can think he's a woman, that's fine. What he can't do in a free society is force me to believe it.' During the appeal this week, barrister for Equality Australia Ruth Higgins SC claimed, 'sex is a way of classifying people along a scale between a man at one end and a woman at the other.' 'But as a matter of ordinary meaning, the statute is agnostic as to where persons are plotted along that scale.' Ms Grover slammed Ms Higgins' statement, and said it removes the purpose of the Sex Discrimination Act. 'What is the point of a sex discrimination act if it's saying there is no difference between a man and a woman, or you could just be anywhere along this invisible line?' she asked. Since Ms Grover lodged the appeal in October, 2024, she has gained the support of thousands of Australians. 'I've just raised over $1 million in crowd funding from regular people who have helped pay for the case, because they want female only spaces, they want the freedom to be able to acknowledge reality,' she said. 'People do care about this.'
