tag

Australia faces multi-faceted threats from autocratic regimes, hackers and antisemitic extremists that present a systemic challenge to national security and are degrading the security environment, the country’s spy chief said. While ‌Australia’s terrorism threat level remains at “probable”, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director-General ​Mike Burgess said the ‌designation does not accurately capture the “concurrent, cascading and compounding threats.” ASIO’s annual assessment followed a year in ‌which Australia confronted threats on multiple ‌fronts, from online radicalisation, state-sponsored cyberattacks to arson against Jewish businesses and a mass shooting in Sydney. “’Probable’ does not tell the full story. The next level on the scale is ‘expected’, which applies when we have intelligence about a specific attack. We do not,” Burgess said in the annual threat assessment speech on Wednesday night. “But we do know the environment is degrading and acts of politically motivated violence are becoming more likely than ‘probable’ ​suggests.” Despite the challenges, Australia is well-placed to meet security threats, Burgess said. ASIO has foiled 31 major terror plots since 2014 and resolved more than a dozen major terror-related ‌cases since the Bondi Beach mass shooting in December ​at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration that killed 15 people. Police ​said the two alleged gunmen appeared to be inspired by the Islamic State militant group. Burgess defended ASIO’s resource allocation leading up to the Bondi attack, saying the agency was countering multiple threats simultaneously and it was extremely difficult to “simplistically pivot” from one threat to another. “We cannot stop every terrorist, just as we cannot catch every spy. But we continue to work around the clock to keep Australians safe,” Burgess said. Encrypted chat platforms are radicalising people, including minors, within weeks, while social ‌media is amplifying grievance narratives, ‌eroding trust in institutions, promoting discord and inflammatory rhetoric, and exacerbating polarisation, he said. Foreign spies are targeting classified information on Australia’s AUKUS nuclear submarine partnership with the United States and Britain. An official with security clearance was contacted by someone pretending to be from a consulting firm, Burgess said. 

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned Sunday that the rise of the far right and increasing antisemitism posed a growing threat to Germany's democracy."One hundred and seven years after 1918, the year the first German Republic was proclaimed, our liberal democracy is under pressure," he said at his official Berlin residence Bellevue Palace."Populists and extremists are mocking our institutions, poisoning public debate, and exploiting fear," he added.November 9 is a highly symbolic date for Germany — in 1918 the proclamation of the Republic was made on this day, in 1938 pogroms erupted against Jews, and in 1989 the Berlin Wall fell.Steinmeier referenced the recent rise of the far right in the shape of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), which scored a 20.5 percent vote share in last February's general election to place second, forcing first-placed Christian Democrats (CDU) to enter a coalition with the beaten Social Democrats.New Chancellor Friedrich Merz has hardened his own rhetoric on immigration since taking office but current opinion polls see the AfD as level-pegging with his party.For Steinmeier, "there must be no political cooperation with extremists. Neither in government nor in parliament.""Antisemitism is not back, because it has always existed," he said, alluding to a record 6,236 recorded antisemitic crimes in Germany last year."Is it possible that we have not learned the lessons of history?" he said