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Andrew McLachlan says he chooses ‘real forests over virtual ones’ as he urges Labor government to consider AI’s impact on artists and environmentGet our daily political email, free app or daily news podcastOutspoken Liberal senator Andrew McLachlan has raised the alarm about the approach of his party and the Labor government to AI, urging artists’ copyright not be “sacrificed” for investment and that building new datacentres must not be prioritised above environmental concerns.As Labor considers copyright changes in an AI policy suite including datacentres, online safety, energy resources and economic benefits, the South Australian backbencher added weight to mooted constitutional challenges as to whether watering down copyright law would be an illegal acquisition of property.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s Politics, really newsletter here Continue reading...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is racing to spark a war with Iran and pull the United States into it before he loses power, according to a former Israeli leader and geopolitical expert Trita Parsi.Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak wrote in Haaretz that Netanyahu, a close ally of President Donald Trump, plans to “carry out a blatant military provocation in order to force Iran to respond on a scale triggering a war that would disrupt or prevent the establishment of a new government.”“For months I have warned publicly that the prime minister is behaving like a wounded animal and that he will not hesitate to disrupt the election, refuse to recognize their results or even launch a war of deception in order to ensure his political survival,” Barak wrote.Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc fell short of a majority in Israel’s Oct. 27 election. Israeli President Isaac Herzog tasked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot with forming a government Nov. 7, giving him 28 days with a possible 14-day extension.Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Saturday that Netanyahu may have no more than three to four weeks to achieve his “lifelong dream” of getting the U.S. to bomb Iran, something he’s pressed for since at least the 1990s.“He has never been closer to this goal, but time is running out,” Parsi wrote.Parsi said former and current Israeli officials, from Avigdor Lieberman to Barak, are sounding the same alarm. He wrote that Netanyahu tried to provoke Iran by violating its airspace the weekend before the election. That same weekend, according to Barak, “a covert operation in Iran that could have ignited a war was thwarted at the last minute.”Netanyahu has been calling Trump “every day” to urge him to resume the war, a person briefed on the discussions recently told the Financial Times. War skeptics inside the White House have been scrambling to push back.Trump hasn’t ruled out war but is hesitating, Parsi wrote. Instead, he has opted to keep an economic blockade on Iran in place for a few more weeks.“But a few more weeks is exactly what Netanyahu does not have,” Parsi wrote.

Jensen Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993; so, for many, Jensen is Nvidia and Nvidia is Jensen.

It will be the first trip to India by a Pakistani federal minister since former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari attended an SCO meeting in Goa in May 2023.

Raising borrowing costs too far risks laying waste to whatever growth there is in the economyA head of steam is building up behind the Bank of England raising interest rates again. With the latest forecasts by the central bank showing inflation rising to 5% next spring, another increase in the cost of borrowing seems inevitable, and may come as soon as next month.A growing number of analysts predict the Bank’s policymakers will don Scrooge masks when they meet on 17 December to deliver a message of austerity and sacrifice. Continue reading...

PM accuses Tories of burning ‘all our bridges’ and says deal he is pursuing with EU will ‘get food prices down’Andy Burnham has said the UK has “lost more than we gained” since leaving the EU, the prime minister’s latest in a string of comments criticising Brexit.Outlining his desire to form closer ties with Brussels, Burnham accused the Conservative party of having “burned all our bridges” with the bloc after Brexit and said a new deal he hopes to secure with the EU next week will “get food prices down” and put more money in the pockets of British exporters. Continue reading...

Dramatic footage showed passengers clinging to railings before rescue teams evacuated everyone. At least 32 people were taken to hospital, but no critical injuries or fatalities were reported.

James ‘Fergie’ Chambers, a Cox Enterprises heir, faced a two-hour hearing about alleged support for HamasA two-hour hearing in Spain’s high court Friday on the US extradition request of wealthy leftwing activist and philanthropist James “Fergie” Chambers turned out to be a study in contrasts.Chambers’s defense took most of the session to query the US citizen and detail irregularities in the Trump administration’s extradition request – several of which the Guardian has reported on – as well as the figures of Spanish law that would lead the three-judge panel to deny the request; while the prosecutor sped through his case, head down, asking Chambers no questions at all. Continue reading...