logo
Germany: New chancellor's controversial Israel remarks

Germany: New chancellor's controversial Israel remarks

RNZ News22-06-2025
Gun control measures are being tightened in Austria following a deadly school shooting.
Photo:
AFP / Alex Halada
Germany correspondent Thomas Sparrow looks at the reaction to comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, after he praised Israel for attacking Iran's nuclear enrichment sites.
It earned the German ambassador a summoning to Iran's Foreign Ministry.
And Austria plans tighter gun control measures following the school shooting in Graz which left 11 dead, including the 21-year-old gunman.
Thomas Sparrow is RNZ's correspondent in Germany
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

'Spying at unprecedented levels': $13.6b annual cost for Australia
'Spying at unprecedented levels': $13.6b annual cost for Australia

RNZ News

time9 hours ago

  • RNZ News

'Spying at unprecedented levels': $13.6b annual cost for Australia

By foreign affairs correspondent Stephen Dziedzic , ABC ASIO chief Mike Burgess has used a speech to warn of the costs of foreign espionage to Australia. Photo: ABC News/ Shaun Kingma Australia's domestic spy chief has used a major speech in Adelaide to warn foreign espionage is costing the nation at least A$12.5 billion (NZ$13.6b) a year, while revealing ASIO has disrupted 24 "major espionage and foreign interference" operations in the last three years alone. ASIO director-general Mike Burgess has also confirmed that Australia expelled "a number" of undeclared Russian intelligence officers in 2022, whilst berating some public officials for "head-spinning" complacency about the threats posed by overseas intelligence agencies. Burgess has struck an increasingly urgent tone about the threats posed by foreign interference in recent years, but Thursday night's speech - delivered at the annual Hawke Lecture at the University of South Australia - is his most detailed account laying out the scale of the threat. The spy chief again listed China, Russia and Iran as three of the main nations behind espionage in Australia but said Australians would be "shocked" by the number of other countries that were also trying similar tactics. He said the 24 major operations disrupted over the past three years were "more than the previous eight years combined" and that strategic competition was driving a "relentless hunger for strategic advantage and an insatiable appetite for inside information". "Nation states are spying at unprecedented levels, with unprecedented sophistication," he said. "ASIO is seeing more Australians targeted - more aggressively - than ever before." He gave multiple examples, such as spies who "convinced a state bureaucrat to log into a database to obtain the names and addresses of individuals considered dissidents by a foreign regime" and a foreign intelligence service that "directed multiple agents and their family members to apply for Australian government jobs - including with the national security community - to get access to classified information". He also said foreign companies connected to intelligence services had "sought to buy access to sensitive personal data sets; sought to buy land near sensitive military sites; and sought to collaborate with researchers developing sensitive technologies". The spy chief also told a story about an overseas delegation visiting a "sensitive Australian horticultural facility" who snapped branches off a "rare and valuable variety of fruit tree" in order to steal them. "Almost certainly, the stolen plant material allowed scientists in the other country to reverse engineer and replicate two decades of Australian research and development," he said. Burgess also said that foreign spy agencies were taking an "unhealthy interest" in accessing military technology secrets shared through the AUKUS pact. "Foreign intelligence services are proactive, creative and opportunistic in their targeting of current and former defence employees: relentless cyber espionage, in-person targeting and technical collection," he said. "In recent years, for example, defence employees travelling overseas have been subjected to covert room searches, been approached at conferences by spies in disguise and given gifts containing surveillance devices. "Defence is alert to these threats and works closely with ASIO to counter them." Private investigator desk with top secret envelopes. Photo: 123RF Burgess didn't name any of the countries behind the new plots he identified, but released a new report that ASIO developed with the Australian Institute of Criminology, which tries to count the cost of espionage. He said while calculating the cost was "challenging", the report found espionage cost the Australian economy at least $12.5b in the 2023-2024 financial year - an estimate Burgess called "conservative" and which likely "significantly underestimates" the true cost of espionage. "Many entities do not know their secrets have been stolen, or do not realise they've been stolen by espionage, or do not report the theft," he said. The spy chief also once again took aim at businesses and officials who he suggested were complacent or deeply naive about the threat of espionage, saying he'd "lost count of the number of times senior officials and executives have privately downplayed the impacts of espionage". "I've watched corporate leaders literally shrug their shoulders when told their networks are compromised," he said. In unusually frank remarks, Burgess also heaped scorn on an unnamed Australian trade official. "Most recently, a trade official told ASIO there's no way the Chinese intelligence services would have any interest in his organisation's people and premises in China," he said. "All too often, we make it all too easy." Australian public servants are being too cavalier on sharing details about their work, Mike Burgess says. Photo: Shutter Speed/Unsplash And he once again rounded on Australian public servants who reveal details about their work online - including on professional networking sites - saying about 7000 of them "reference their work in the defence sector" and "close to 400 explicitly say they work on AUKUS". "Nearly two and a half thousand publicly boast about having a security clearance and 1300 claim to work in the national security community," he said. "While these numbers have fallen since I first raised the alarm two years ago, this still makes my head spin … surely these individuals, of all people, should understand the threat and recognise the risk? "I get that people need to market themselves but telling social media you hold a security clearance or work on a highly classified project is more than naive; it's recklessly inviting the attention of a foreign intelligence service." Burgess said that "thousands of Australian students, academics, politicians, business people, researchers, law enforcement officials and public servants at all levels of government" have been targeted for espionage through networking sites. "The vast majority resist, report or ignore the approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, though, some are sucked in and end up being used - recklessly or consciously - to gather information for a foreign country." -ABC

Russian strikes pound Kyiv, 6-year-old boy listed among dead
Russian strikes pound Kyiv, 6-year-old boy listed among dead

RNZ News

time16 hours ago

  • RNZ News

Russian strikes pound Kyiv, 6-year-old boy listed among dead

By Anastasiia Malenko and Vladyslav Smilianets , Reuters Ukrainian rescuers remove a burnt-out car at the site of an air attack in Kyiv on 31 July, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: OLEKSII FILIPPOV / AFP Russia launched waves of missile and drone attacks on Kyiv before dawn on Thursday local time, killing at least eight people including a six-year-old boy, and wounding 88 others, Ukrainian officials said. As the sun rose, emergency crews were putting out fires and cutting through concrete blocks in search for survivors across the capital. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles. "Today the world has once again seen Russia's response to our desire for peace with America and Europe . Therefore, peace without strength is impossible," Zelensky said on the Telegram app. Russia's Defence Ministry said it targeted and hit Ukrainian military airfields and ammunition depots as well as businesses linked to what it called Kyiv's military-industrial complex. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine children were wounded, the largest number hurt in a single night in the city since Russia started its full-scale invasion almost three and a half years ago. Explosions rocked Kyiv from about midnight onwards and blazes lit up the night sky. Yurii Kravchuk, 62, stood wrapped in a blanket next to a damaged building, with a bandage around his head. He had heard the missile alert but did not get to a shelter in time, he told Reuters. "I started waking up my wife and then there was an explosion. My daughter ended up in the hospital," he said. Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has stepped up air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities far from the front line of the war in recent months. At one location, rescuers spent more than three hours getting to a man trapped in rubble by cutting through the wall of a neighbouring apartment, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said. He talked to the emergency services during the operation and was pulled out alive, it added. A five-month-old baby was among the wounded, with five children hospitalized, the head of city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on national television. Schools and hospitals were among the buildings damaged across 27 locations in the city, officials said. "The attack was extremely insidious and deliberately calculated to overload the air defence system," Zelenskiy wrote on X. He posted a video of burning ruins, saying people were still trapped under the rubble of one partially-ruined residential building as of the morning. The president said the attacks had killed a six-year-old and the boy's mother, but later edited the post to remove reference to the mother. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (local time) that the United States would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia "10 days from today" if Moscow showed no progress toward ending the conflict. "This is Putin's response to Trump's deadlines," Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. "The world must respond with a tribunal and maximum pressure." The air force reported five direct missile hits and 21 drone hits in 12 locations. Ukrainian air defence units downed 288 drones and three cruise missiles, the air force added.

UK: PM's Palestine plans, doctors' strikes, mighty Lionesses
UK: PM's Palestine plans, doctors' strikes, mighty Lionesses

RNZ News

timea day ago

  • RNZ News

UK: PM's Palestine plans, doctors' strikes, mighty Lionesses

UK correspondent Rob Watson joins Kathryn to talk about reaction to Prime Minister Keir Starmer's announcement Britain is ready to recognise Palestinian statehood. It's a year since anti-immigrant riots rocked Britain, following the murder of three girls at a dance class - where are things at now? New talks are planned to help avert any further action by resident doctors in a long-running pay dispute and tens of thousands welcomed the Lionesses home after their success at the Euros. Rob Watson is a BBC political correspondent To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store