...

In May, Donald Trump Jr. had a wedding on a pair of private islands.

...

On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.

...

“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.

That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

...

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association [IBA], a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.

...

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

...

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

...

The revelations come as Trump Jr. has emerged as a political power center in his own right. Beloved by the MAGA base, he reportedly played an active role in vetting White House cabinet picks for Trump’s second term and was dubbed his father’s “most essential political adviser” by The Wall Street Journal. “I certainly don’t think I’d be sitting here as the VP nominee without Don’s help,” Vice President JD Vance told the outlet in late 2024.

...

In 2009, Umar Kremlev did not yet exist.

He was in his late 20s, with a criminal record for extortion and battery, still going by his birth name, Umar Lutfulloyev, according to the Russian independent news outlet Proekt. But he was about to rapidly ascend in Russia to a position of wealth and influence, with the help of a powerful friend. (“Mr. Kremlev has a completely clean legal record,” his press office said.)

...

With the business environment in Europe growing more hostile to Russia, Kremlev moved much of the IBA’s operations from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. A new Dubai entity, IB Challenger, would later pay wedding expenses for Trump Jr. The current sources of the IBA’s funds are murky, and, in recent years, top executives have given conflicting accounts of the status of its relationship with Gazprom.

...

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

Much about Kremlev’s relationship with Trump Jr., and where it is headed, remains unknown. In a press release after the Istanbul panel, the IBA hinted there was more to come.

“President Kremlev and Donald Trump Jr made it clear – this alliance will not remain symbolic,” the press release read. “More joint initiatives will follow.”

...

Web Archive link

...

In May, Donald Trump Jr. had a wedding on a pair of private islands.

...

On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.

...

“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.

That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

...

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association [IBA], a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.

...

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

...

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

...

The revelations come as Trump Jr. has emerged as a political power center in his own right. Beloved by the MAGA base, he reportedly played an active role in vetting White House cabinet picks for Trump’s second term and was dubbed his father’s “most essential political adviser” by The Wall Street Journal. “I certainly don’t think I’d be sitting here as the VP nominee without Don’s help,” Vice President JD Vance told the outlet in late 2024.

...

In 2009, Umar Kremlev did not yet exist.

He was in his late 20s, with a criminal record for extortion and battery, still going by his birth name, Umar Lutfulloyev, according to the Russian independent news outlet Proekt. But he was about to rapidly ascend in Russia to a position of wealth and influence, with the help of a powerful friend. (“Mr. Kremlev has a completely clean legal record,” his press office said.)

...

With the business environment in Europe growing more hostile to Russia, Kremlev moved much of the IBA’s operations from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. A new Dubai entity, IB Challenger, would later pay wedding expenses for Trump Jr. The current sources of the IBA’s funds are murky, and, in recent years, top executives have given conflicting accounts of the status of its relationship with Gazprom.

...

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

Much about Kremlev’s relationship with Trump Jr., and where it is headed, remains unknown. In a press release after the Istanbul panel, the IBA hinted there was more to come.

“President Kremlev and Donald Trump Jr made it clear – this alliance will not remain symbolic,” the press release read. “More joint initiatives will follow.”

...

Web Archive link

...

In May, Donald Trump Jr. had a wedding on a pair of private islands.

...

On May 24, Donald Trump Jr. was celebrating in the Bahamas, as scantily clad dancers in stilettos and sailor caps performed for him and his guests. It was the last night of his wedding, a lavish, three-day party held across a pair of ultra-exclusive private islands. A five-tier funfetti cake had been airlifted in from Florida, and helicopters and seaplanes descended on the islands before guests settled into their oceanfront villas. That night on the beach, Trump Jr. lifted his bride into the air while fireworks launched from a barge over the sea.

...

“It was everything we dreamed of and more,” his wife later wrote on Instagram.

That dream was heavily funded by a secret benefactor: Umar Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to President Vladimir Putin.

...

Kremlev footed the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars of wedding expenses, according to records reviewed by ProPublica and interviews with three people familiar with the event. The oligarch paid to rent out one of the private islands, where a reception was held and where guests slept. He also covered other big-ticket items, like the fireworks show, and his team helped plan the event. Kremlev is the head of the International Boxing Association [IBA], a scandal-plagued sports group that has been financed by the Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom. The wedding payments came from an IBA-affiliated entity in Dubai that the boxing association uses for financial transactions.

The guest list numbered around 50. It included Trump Jr.’s brother-in-law Jared Kushner, Eric Trump — and Kremlev, an imposing man with a shaved head who speaks limited English. The oligarch was part of a large group whose presence puzzled other attendees. They sometimes stood off by themselves, speaking Russian.

...

Kremlev’s previously unreported relationship with Trump Jr. represents an extraordinary development: a member of Putin’s circle financially supporting the president’s son and gaining intimate access to the Trump family. For a decade, Putin’s government, regarded as a chief adversary of the U.S., has been accused of efforts to influence American elections. Attempts by Russia to make inroads with the Trumps before the 2016 election exploded into controversy that dogged much of the president’s first term.

...

National security experts expressed alarm at Trump Jr. accepting the oligarch’s largesse, saying it raised an urgent question: What motivated Kremlev to spend a fortune cultivating the connection?

“If I’m paying for your wedding, at some point, you’re going to owe me something,” said Frank Montoya Jr., a retired career FBI official who held senior counterintelligence roles. Oligarchs like Kremlev often act in coordination with the Russian government. While it’s unclear if that happened here, Trump Jr. put himself in a precarious position, Montoya said. “This should be unthinkable for the son of the president. End of story.”

...

The revelations come as Trump Jr. has emerged as a political power center in his own right. Beloved by the MAGA base, he reportedly played an active role in vetting White House cabinet picks for Trump’s second term and was dubbed his father’s “most essential political adviser” by The Wall Street Journal. “I certainly don’t think I’d be sitting here as the VP nominee without Don’s help,” Vice President JD Vance told the outlet in late 2024.

...

In 2009, Umar Kremlev did not yet exist.

He was in his late 20s, with a criminal record for extortion and battery, still going by his birth name, Umar Lutfulloyev, according to the Russian independent news outlet Proekt. But he was about to rapidly ascend in Russia to a position of wealth and influence, with the help of a powerful friend. (“Mr. Kremlev has a completely clean legal record,” his press office said.)

...

With the business environment in Europe growing more hostile to Russia, Kremlev moved much of the IBA’s operations from Switzerland to the United Arab Emirates. A new Dubai entity, IB Challenger, would later pay wedding expenses for Trump Jr. The current sources of the IBA’s funds are murky, and, in recent years, top executives have given conflicting accounts of the status of its relationship with Gazprom.

...

Recently, Kremlev has been working to expand into the U.S. market. In July, his group hosted a bare-knuckle boxing event in Miami, a chance to showcase a particularly bloody form of the sport in which contenders fight without gloves. But the debut was overshadowed when manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who the IBA had brought in to host, was arrested by U.S. Marshals outside the arena. (Tate is facing rape and sex trafficking charges in the United Kingdom, which he has denied.)

Much about Kremlev’s relationship with Trump Jr., and where it is headed, remains unknown. In a press release after the Istanbul panel, the IBA hinted there was more to come.

“President Kremlev and Donald Trump Jr made it clear – this alliance will not remain symbolic,” the press release read. “More joint initiatives will follow.”

...

Web Archive link

[Op-ed by Professor Vince Hooper, an Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.]

...

A UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (UNSW) engineer who collaborated with Chinese scientists on eavesdropping and covert drone research has been handed two taxpayer-funded grants.

Natasha Bita's latest report in The Australian is not an isolated finding. It is a data point on a curve that has been steepening for years, and whose gradient Australia's universities have been remarkably reluctant to acknowledge.

In May, the intelligence firm Strider Technologies published its report From Innovation to Weaponisation, documenting more than 6,000 joint publications between researchers at over 80 Australian organisations and institutions affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), all since 2020.

More than 300 of those papers were co-authored with a "Seven Sons of National Defence" university that had been sanctioned by the United States for attempting to acquire items in support of PLA programs.

The collaborations spanned artificial intelligence, aerospace systems, communication jamming, target tracking and swarm-enabled precision strike. One ARC-funded project examined insect-inspired flapping-wing robots; the Chinese partner institution subsequently developed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military operations.

...

On 14 May, Education Minister Jason Clare blocked 13 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications for reasons relating to the security, defence or international relations of Australia, more than double the number vetoed on such grounds in any previous year.

Clare acted on advice from ASIO and the departments of Defence and Home Affairs. ARC data reveals the organisation has funded at least 1,500 joint projects with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

...

The parallels with [the subprime crisis of] 2008 are instructive. Begin with counterparty risk: the most elementary question in any transaction is who is actually on the other side.

A visiting scholar from the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) is not simply a collaborator. The counterparty is the PLA.

Alex Joske's earlier work for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) found that some two dozen NUDT-linked researchers had passed through UNSW alone in a single decade, many holding PLA rank, returning to China with advanced training and international networks that fed directly into military projects.

...

As with the subprime crisis, nobody was checking the underlying exposure. The grant was approved, the paper was published, the ranking improved. The counterparty's intentions were someone else's problem.

Then consider moral hazard. Universities captured the upside of these collaborations: revenue, publications, global prestige.

The downside, the strategic risk of knowledge transfer to a military adversary, fell entirely on the Australian taxpayer and the national interest.

...

Associate Professor Brendan Walker-Munro, whose UNSW Law Journal analysis of ARC research security has become a reference point for policymakers, has documented how ARC-funded researchers have continued to collaborate with peers from institutions that have direct and visible links to the military, defence, law enforcement or intelligence organs of unfriendly nations, even after assurances that they would stop.

Multiple funding sources and collaborators' multiple affiliations sometimes obscure the true ownership of the research.

As Walker-Munro has concluded, Australian universities do not seem able to properly monitor the work of their scientists, engineers and researchers. Thirteen blocked grants against 6000 papers is not a correction. It is a margin call on a portfolio whose true losses have not yet been disclosed.

...

The systemic risk is real. The exposure is not confined to one institution.

UNSW, the Australian National University (ANU), and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) recur disproportionately in the Strider data, but researchers from more than 80 organisations contributed to those 6000 papers.

...

Like the interconnected balance sheets that turned a housing correction [in 2008] into a global financial crisis, the research network is cross-linked in ways no single regulator can see. Knowledge, once transferred through a co-authored paper, a shared data set, or a visiting scholar's notebook, cannot be recalled.

...

Universities challenged on these associations have reacted with institutional defensiveness that would be familiar to anyone who watched the banks in 2007.

UTS partnered with CETC, the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, on a $10 million research collaboration even as CETC was building surveillance and control infrastructure for the Chinese state.

CETC's own documentation described the work as enhancing public security supervisory abilities and cyberspace control. These are not ambiguous signals. They are published capabilities. The due diligence that should have caught them was never conducted.

...

On 10 August, the government finally acted on the instrument it had held in reserve for years.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the Foreign Relations Act 2020 to terminate the Australian National University's Joint Science College with Shandong University, declaring it invalid and unenforceable and ordering ANU to shut the programme by January 2027.

It was the first time the Act had been used to cancel a university collaboration. Wong simultaneously ended a University of Queensland (UQ) research partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

...

ANU, which shares its Canberra campus with a joint laboratory run by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), had been hosting a Chinese partner whose research strengths include code-breaking.

A Nobel laureate and former ANU vice-chancellor described the arrangement as "almost no risk" — 116 further Australian agreements with Shandong University remain on the foreign arrangements register, untouched.

...

Walker-Munro advocates a holistic framework for vetting research collaborations, adapted from anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing mechanisms. The analogy is apt. When the problem is systemic and the counterparty is concealed, you do not fix it by blocking individual transactions. You reform the plumbing.

A listening post works both ways. Australia built one of the world's most open research systems. It is long past time to ask who has been listening, and what they heard.

...

Web Archive link

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno on Saturday praised Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as a role model for freedom-loving women around the world and told CNA that she would soon begin planning a trip to Taipei after accepting Hsiao's invitation to visit.

Hsiao made an unannounced visit to Italy to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy on the Italian island of Ventotene at the invitation of the event organizers, despite strong protests from Beijing.

In an interview with CNA on the sidelines of the event on Saturday, Picierno, the conference's main initiator, described Hsiao as a role model.

"I believe the world needs the courage of women; and throughout history, many women have changed the course of history through their determination," Picierno said.

...

"As authoritarian regimes threaten our democracies, we have an even greater need for courageous women like Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim," she added.

...

Picierno noted that Hsiao fights for human rights and women's rights and is a "staunch pro-democracy activist who inspires freedom-loving women across the world."

,..

The trip was Hsiao's second visit to a European country that recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei since she took office in May 2024. Her first visit was in November 2025 to Brussels to address a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

...

Web Archive link

[Op-ed by Professor Vince Hooper, an Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.]

...

A UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (UNSW) engineer who collaborated with Chinese scientists on eavesdropping and covert drone research has been handed two taxpayer-funded grants.

Natasha Bita's latest report in The Australian is not an isolated finding. It is a data point on a curve that has been steepening for years, and whose gradient Australia's universities have been remarkably reluctant to acknowledge.

In May, the intelligence firm Strider Technologies published its report From Innovation to Weaponisation, documenting more than 6,000 joint publications between researchers at over 80 Australian organisations and institutions affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), all since 2020.

More than 300 of those papers were co-authored with a "Seven Sons of National Defence" university that had been sanctioned by the United States for attempting to acquire items in support of PLA programs.

The collaborations spanned artificial intelligence, aerospace systems, communication jamming, target tracking and swarm-enabled precision strike. One ARC-funded project examined insect-inspired flapping-wing robots; the Chinese partner institution subsequently developed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military operations.

...

On 14 May, Education Minister Jason Clare blocked 13 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications for reasons relating to the security, defence or international relations of Australia, more than double the number vetoed on such grounds in any previous year.

Clare acted on advice from ASIO and the departments of Defence and Home Affairs. ARC data reveals the organisation has funded at least 1,500 joint projects with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

...

The parallels with [the subprime crisis of] 2008 are instructive. Begin with counterparty risk: the most elementary question in any transaction is who is actually on the other side.

A visiting scholar from the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) is not simply a collaborator. The counterparty is the PLA.

Alex Joske's earlier work for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) found that some two dozen NUDT-linked researchers had passed through UNSW alone in a single decade, many holding PLA rank, returning to China with advanced training and international networks that fed directly into military projects.

...

As with the subprime crisis, nobody was checking the underlying exposure. The grant was approved, the paper was published, the ranking improved. The counterparty's intentions were someone else's problem.

Then consider moral hazard. Universities captured the upside of these collaborations: revenue, publications, global prestige.

The downside, the strategic risk of knowledge transfer to a military adversary, fell entirely on the Australian taxpayer and the national interest.

...

Associate Professor Brendan Walker-Munro, whose UNSW Law Journal analysis of ARC research security has become a reference point for policymakers, has documented how ARC-funded researchers have continued to collaborate with peers from institutions that have direct and visible links to the military, defence, law enforcement or intelligence organs of unfriendly nations, even after assurances that they would stop.

Multiple funding sources and collaborators' multiple affiliations sometimes obscure the true ownership of the research.

As Walker-Munro has concluded, Australian universities do not seem able to properly monitor the work of their scientists, engineers and researchers. Thirteen blocked grants against 6000 papers is not a correction. It is a margin call on a portfolio whose true losses have not yet been disclosed.

...

The systemic risk is real. The exposure is not confined to one institution.

UNSW, the Australian National University (ANU), and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) recur disproportionately in the Strider data, but researchers from more than 80 organisations contributed to those 6000 papers.

...

Like the interconnected balance sheets that turned a housing correction [in 2008] into a global financial crisis, the research network is cross-linked in ways no single regulator can see. Knowledge, once transferred through a co-authored paper, a shared data set, or a visiting scholar's notebook, cannot be recalled.

...

Universities challenged on these associations have reacted with institutional defensiveness that would be familiar to anyone who watched the banks in 2007.

UTS partnered with CETC, the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, on a $10 million research collaboration even as CETC was building surveillance and control infrastructure for the Chinese state.

CETC's own documentation described the work as enhancing public security supervisory abilities and cyberspace control. These are not ambiguous signals. They are published capabilities. The due diligence that should have caught them was never conducted.

...

On 10 August, the government finally acted on the instrument it had held in reserve for years.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the Foreign Relations Act 2020 to terminate the Australian National University's Joint Science College with Shandong University, declaring it invalid and unenforceable and ordering ANU to shut the programme by January 2027.

It was the first time the Act had been used to cancel a university collaboration. Wong simultaneously ended a University of Queensland (UQ) research partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

...

ANU, which shares its Canberra campus with a joint laboratory run by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), had been hosting a Chinese partner whose research strengths include code-breaking.

A Nobel laureate and former ANU vice-chancellor described the arrangement as "almost no risk" — 116 further Australian agreements with Shandong University remain on the foreign arrangements register, untouched.

...

Walker-Munro advocates a holistic framework for vetting research collaborations, adapted from anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing mechanisms. The analogy is apt. When the problem is systemic and the counterparty is concealed, you do not fix it by blocking individual transactions. You reform the plumbing.

A listening post works both ways. Australia built one of the world's most open research systems. It is long past time to ask who has been listening, and what they heard.

...

Web Archive link

[Op-ed by Professor Vince Hooper, an Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.]

...

A UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (UNSW) engineer who collaborated with Chinese scientists on eavesdropping and covert drone research has been handed two taxpayer-funded grants.

Natasha Bita's latest report in The Australian is not an isolated finding. It is a data point on a curve that has been steepening for years, and whose gradient Australia's universities have been remarkably reluctant to acknowledge.

In May, the intelligence firm Strider Technologies published its report From Innovation to Weaponisation, documenting more than 6,000 joint publications between researchers at over 80 Australian organisations and institutions affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), all since 2020.

More than 300 of those papers were co-authored with a "Seven Sons of National Defence" university that had been sanctioned by the United States for attempting to acquire items in support of PLA programs.

The collaborations spanned artificial intelligence, aerospace systems, communication jamming, target tracking and swarm-enabled precision strike. One ARC-funded project examined insect-inspired flapping-wing robots; the Chinese partner institution subsequently developed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military operations.

...

On 14 May, Education Minister Jason Clare blocked 13 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications for reasons relating to the security, defence or international relations of Australia, more than double the number vetoed on such grounds in any previous year.

Clare acted on advice from ASIO and the departments of Defence and Home Affairs. ARC data reveals the organisation has funded at least 1,500 joint projects with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

...

The parallels with [the subprime crisis of] 2008 are instructive. Begin with counterparty risk: the most elementary question in any transaction is who is actually on the other side.

A visiting scholar from the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) is not simply a collaborator. The counterparty is the PLA.

Alex Joske's earlier work for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) found that some two dozen NUDT-linked researchers had passed through UNSW alone in a single decade, many holding PLA rank, returning to China with advanced training and international networks that fed directly into military projects.

...

As with the subprime crisis, nobody was checking the underlying exposure. The grant was approved, the paper was published, the ranking improved. The counterparty's intentions were someone else's problem.

Then consider moral hazard. Universities captured the upside of these collaborations: revenue, publications, global prestige.

The downside, the strategic risk of knowledge transfer to a military adversary, fell entirely on the Australian taxpayer and the national interest.

...

Associate Professor Brendan Walker-Munro, whose UNSW Law Journal analysis of ARC research security has become a reference point for policymakers, has documented how ARC-funded researchers have continued to collaborate with peers from institutions that have direct and visible links to the military, defence, law enforcement or intelligence organs of unfriendly nations, even after assurances that they would stop.

Multiple funding sources and collaborators' multiple affiliations sometimes obscure the true ownership of the research.

As Walker-Munro has concluded, Australian universities do not seem able to properly monitor the work of their scientists, engineers and researchers. Thirteen blocked grants against 6000 papers is not a correction. It is a margin call on a portfolio whose true losses have not yet been disclosed.

...

The systemic risk is real. The exposure is not confined to one institution.

UNSW, the Australian National University (ANU), and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) recur disproportionately in the Strider data, but researchers from more than 80 organisations contributed to those 6000 papers.

...

Like the interconnected balance sheets that turned a housing correction [in 2008] into a global financial crisis, the research network is cross-linked in ways no single regulator can see. Knowledge, once transferred through a co-authored paper, a shared data set, or a visiting scholar's notebook, cannot be recalled.

...

Universities challenged on these associations have reacted with institutional defensiveness that would be familiar to anyone who watched the banks in 2007.

UTS partnered with CETC, the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, on a $10 million research collaboration even as CETC was building surveillance and control infrastructure for the Chinese state.

CETC's own documentation described the work as enhancing public security supervisory abilities and cyberspace control. These are not ambiguous signals. They are published capabilities. The due diligence that should have caught them was never conducted.

...

On 10 August, the government finally acted on the instrument it had held in reserve for years.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the Foreign Relations Act 2020 to terminate the Australian National University's Joint Science College with Shandong University, declaring it invalid and unenforceable and ordering ANU to shut the programme by January 2027.

It was the first time the Act had been used to cancel a university collaboration. Wong simultaneously ended a University of Queensland (UQ) research partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

...

ANU, which shares its Canberra campus with a joint laboratory run by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), had been hosting a Chinese partner whose research strengths include code-breaking.

A Nobel laureate and former ANU vice-chancellor described the arrangement as "almost no risk" — 116 further Australian agreements with Shandong University remain on the foreign arrangements register, untouched.

...

Walker-Munro advocates a holistic framework for vetting research collaborations, adapted from anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing mechanisms. The analogy is apt. When the problem is systemic and the counterparty is concealed, you do not fix it by blocking individual transactions. You reform the plumbing.

A listening post works both ways. Australia built one of the world's most open research systems. It is long past time to ask who has been listening, and what they heard.

...

Web Archive link

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno on Saturday praised Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as a role model for freedom-loving women around the world and told CNA that she would soon begin planning a trip to Taipei after accepting Hsiao's invitation to visit.

Hsiao made an unannounced visit to Italy to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy on the Italian island of Ventotene at the invitation of the event organizers, despite strong protests from Beijing.

In an interview with CNA on the sidelines of the event on Saturday, Picierno, the conference's main initiator, described Hsiao as a role model.

"I believe the world needs the courage of women; and throughout history, many women have changed the course of history through their determination," Picierno said.

...

"As authoritarian regimes threaten our democracies, we have an even greater need for courageous women like Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim," she added.

...

Picierno noted that Hsiao fights for human rights and women's rights and is a "staunch pro-democracy activist who inspires freedom-loving women across the world."

,..

The trip was Hsiao's second visit to a European country that recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei since she took office in May 2024. Her first visit was in November 2025 to Brussels to address a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

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[Op-ed by Professor Vince Hooper, an Australian-British citizen and professor of finance and discipline head at SP Jain School of Global Management with campuses in London, Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney.]

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A UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES (UNSW) engineer who collaborated with Chinese scientists on eavesdropping and covert drone research has been handed two taxpayer-funded grants.

Natasha Bita's latest report in The Australian is not an isolated finding. It is a data point on a curve that has been steepening for years, and whose gradient Australia's universities have been remarkably reluctant to acknowledge.

In May, the intelligence firm Strider Technologies published its report From Innovation to Weaponisation, documenting more than 6,000 joint publications between researchers at over 80 Australian organisations and institutions affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), all since 2020.

More than 300 of those papers were co-authored with a "Seven Sons of National Defence" university that had been sanctioned by the United States for attempting to acquire items in support of PLA programs.

The collaborations spanned artificial intelligence, aerospace systems, communication jamming, target tracking and swarm-enabled precision strike. One ARC-funded project examined insect-inspired flapping-wing robots; the Chinese partner institution subsequently developed a mosquito-sized drone for covert military operations.

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On 14 May, Education Minister Jason Clare blocked 13 Australian Research Council (ARC) grant applications for reasons relating to the security, defence or international relations of Australia, more than double the number vetoed on such grounds in any previous year.

Clare acted on advice from ASIO and the departments of Defence and Home Affairs. ARC data reveals the organisation has funded at least 1,500 joint projects with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.

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The parallels with [the subprime crisis of] 2008 are instructive. Begin with counterparty risk: the most elementary question in any transaction is who is actually on the other side.

A visiting scholar from the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT) is not simply a collaborator. The counterparty is the PLA.

Alex Joske's earlier work for the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) found that some two dozen NUDT-linked researchers had passed through UNSW alone in a single decade, many holding PLA rank, returning to China with advanced training and international networks that fed directly into military projects.

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As with the subprime crisis, nobody was checking the underlying exposure. The grant was approved, the paper was published, the ranking improved. The counterparty's intentions were someone else's problem.

Then consider moral hazard. Universities captured the upside of these collaborations: revenue, publications, global prestige.

The downside, the strategic risk of knowledge transfer to a military adversary, fell entirely on the Australian taxpayer and the national interest.

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Associate Professor Brendan Walker-Munro, whose UNSW Law Journal analysis of ARC research security has become a reference point for policymakers, has documented how ARC-funded researchers have continued to collaborate with peers from institutions that have direct and visible links to the military, defence, law enforcement or intelligence organs of unfriendly nations, even after assurances that they would stop.

Multiple funding sources and collaborators' multiple affiliations sometimes obscure the true ownership of the research.

As Walker-Munro has concluded, Australian universities do not seem able to properly monitor the work of their scientists, engineers and researchers. Thirteen blocked grants against 6000 papers is not a correction. It is a margin call on a portfolio whose true losses have not yet been disclosed.

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The systemic risk is real. The exposure is not confined to one institution.

UNSW, the Australian National University (ANU), and the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) recur disproportionately in the Strider data, but researchers from more than 80 organisations contributed to those 6000 papers.

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Like the interconnected balance sheets that turned a housing correction [in 2008] into a global financial crisis, the research network is cross-linked in ways no single regulator can see. Knowledge, once transferred through a co-authored paper, a shared data set, or a visiting scholar's notebook, cannot be recalled.

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Universities challenged on these associations have reacted with institutional defensiveness that would be familiar to anyone who watched the banks in 2007.

UTS partnered with CETC, the China Electronics Technology Group Corporation, on a $10 million research collaboration even as CETC was building surveillance and control infrastructure for the Chinese state.

CETC's own documentation described the work as enhancing public security supervisory abilities and cyberspace control. These are not ambiguous signals. They are published capabilities. The due diligence that should have caught them was never conducted.

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On 10 August, the government finally acted on the instrument it had held in reserve for years.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong invoked the Foreign Relations Act 2020 to terminate the Australian National University's Joint Science College with Shandong University, declaring it invalid and unenforceable and ordering ANU to shut the programme by January 2027.

It was the first time the Act had been used to cancel a university collaboration. Wong simultaneously ended a University of Queensland (UQ) research partnership with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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ANU, which shares its Canberra campus with a joint laboratory run by the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), had been hosting a Chinese partner whose research strengths include code-breaking.

A Nobel laureate and former ANU vice-chancellor described the arrangement as "almost no risk" — 116 further Australian agreements with Shandong University remain on the foreign arrangements register, untouched.

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Walker-Munro advocates a holistic framework for vetting research collaborations, adapted from anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing mechanisms. The analogy is apt. When the problem is systemic and the counterparty is concealed, you do not fix it by blocking individual transactions. You reform the plumbing.

A listening post works both ways. Australia built one of the world's most open research systems. It is long past time to ask who has been listening, and what they heard.

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European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno on Saturday praised Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as a role model for freedom-loving women around the world and told CNA that she would soon begin planning a trip to Taipei after accepting Hsiao's invitation to visit.

Hsiao made an unannounced visit to Italy to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy on the Italian island of Ventotene at the invitation of the event organizers, despite strong protests from Beijing.

In an interview with CNA on the sidelines of the event on Saturday, Picierno, the conference's main initiator, described Hsiao as a role model.

"I believe the world needs the courage of women; and throughout history, many women have changed the course of history through their determination," Picierno said.

...

"As authoritarian regimes threaten our democracies, we have an even greater need for courageous women like Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim," she added.

...

Picierno noted that Hsiao fights for human rights and women's rights and is a "staunch pro-democracy activist who inspires freedom-loving women across the world."

,..

The trip was Hsiao's second visit to a European country that recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei since she took office in May 2024. Her first visit was in November 2025 to Brussels to address a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

...

Web Archive link

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno on Saturday praised Taiwanese Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) as a role model for freedom-loving women around the world and told CNA that she would soon begin planning a trip to Taipei after accepting Hsiao's invitation to visit.

Hsiao made an unannounced visit to Italy to attend the Second Ventotene European Conference for Freedom and Democracy on the Italian island of Ventotene at the invitation of the event organizers, despite strong protests from Beijing.

In an interview with CNA on the sidelines of the event on Saturday, Picierno, the conference's main initiator, described Hsiao as a role model.

"I believe the world needs the courage of women; and throughout history, many women have changed the course of history through their determination," Picierno said.

...

"As authoritarian regimes threaten our democracies, we have an even greater need for courageous women like Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim," she added.

...

Picierno noted that Hsiao fights for human rights and women's rights and is a "staunch pro-democracy activist who inspires freedom-loving women across the world."

,..

The trip was Hsiao's second visit to a European country that recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei since she took office in May 2024. Her first visit was in November 2025 to Brussels to address a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

...

Web Archive link

• A database built by Mongabay Latam, based on the analysis of scientific studies that gathered more than 7,000 samples from humans and 5,900 from fish, identified the areas most affected by mercury contamination in the Madeira River, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon.
• Mongabay Latam investigated the impact of mercury contamination on the health of the most affected communities: Lake Puruzinho in the state of Amazonas, and the riverside community of Calama and the Karipuna Indigenous Territory, in Rondônia state.
• Studies show that mercury concentrations among residents of Lake Puruzinho are among the highest recorded in the Madeira River Basin and well above what the World Health Organization considers safe, prompting residents to change their eating habits.
• High levels of mercury in Amazonian communities are related to fish consumption, their main source of protein; the accumulation of mercury in humans can cause serious health damage, such as motor and neurological problems, researchers say.

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An analysis of 42 scientific studies published between 1997 and 2024 found evidence of mercury exposure among residents of at least 249 Indigenous and riverside communities over that 27-year period. Another 702 communities are at risk because they’re located near illegal mining hotspots, in addition to communities where residents have already tested positive for mercury. In Brazil, at least 286 Indigenous and riverside communities don’t know how much mercury is in their bodies, or the danger posed by continued exposure.

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It takes two hours by regular boat, or 40 minutes by speedboat, to reach the Lake Puruzinho community from Humaitá. The river journey offers a quintessential Amazonian scene: the noise of the engine, the sound of the water, and the green of the forest reflected on the surface of a river teeming with life.

There’s no gold mining at Lake Puruzinho, and at first glance it appears to be a natural refuge. However, currents from the Madeira River carry fish into the lake that have been contaminated by mercury from mining sites in the region. The mercury accumulates in fish tissue and eventually ends up in people’s bodies, resulting in high concentrations in residents’ hair, blood, and feces, studies show.

“Fish is, unfortunately, the main route of entry for the ingestion of mercury,” De Almeida, the UNIR researcher, tells Mongabay Latam during a visit to his office at the campus in Porto Velho, the Rondônia state capital. Among the studies to which he contributed was a paper published in 2021 examining the relationship between high fish consumption and mercury levels in the blood of residents of communities in the Brazilian Amazon.

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According to De Almeida, contamination by organic mercury in food, in the form of methylmercury, is much more serious than direct exposure to metallic mercury. “When someone uses metallic mercury — which is elemental mercury and is liquid — if you leave it here on the bench, it will evaporate. If you inhale this mercury, will it cause some damage to your health? Yes, it will, but your organism will eliminate it at a much higher rate than organic mercury,” he says. “Now organic mercury, methylmercury, when we ingest it through some type of food, it enters the organism and its elimination rate is very low. So it stays retained in the organism, it will accumulate over time, and it will cause serious damage to health: neurological problems, cardiological problems, orientation problems.”

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Protection that doesn’t arrive

Brazil has been a party to the Minamata Convention since 2013; the agreement establishes regulations on the use, trade, and production of mercury. In 2018, the federal government formally incorporated the convention into Brazilian law.

However, Mongabay Latam found that Brazil has yet to implement restrictions on mercury use in the states of Amazonas and Rondônia, where it’s still used in illegal gold mining. The government also hasn’t set a date for implementing the restrictions, according to statements from the ministries involved in the Minamata Convention, obtained through access-to-information requests and from their press offices.

“Brazil does not have a [current] sectoral implementation plan for the Minamata Convention on mercury,” said the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change.

In 2023, Brazil presented its Minamata Initial Assessment (MIA), a study of the country’s use, emissions, and releases of mercury. According to the environment ministry, the assessment identified regulatory gaps and sources of mercury releases, and helped establish priorities for meeting the convention’s obligations. The ministry did not provide a timeline for implementing those measures.

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Scientists say a dedicated system for detecting mercury-related disease is important because damage to the central nervous system causing motor, sensory, or cognitive problems can’t be cured. Early detection and appropriate intervention are therefore important to help maintain quality of life, the experts added.

Given the scale of the contamination, De Almeida says the priority should be to stop mercury emissions. “The [main] thing is to stop emitting, it is the first thing. We need to do that.”

In Lake Puruzinho, Raimundo dos Santos says his dream is to be able to enjoy the beauty of the lake and live from its riches — without mercury. “We love this nature that God left for us,” he says, looking at the water’s mirrored surface. “It is my dream to raise fish within the region itself.”

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