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Acting prime minister and defence minister Richard Marles has spoken to ABC News Breakfast this morning after the $368bn announcement of the Aukus deal yesterday.
In response to the reaction from China accusing Australia, the US and Britain of embarking on a “path of error and danger”, Marles defends making a decision that is in Australia’s national interest:
We are seeking to acquire this capability to make our contribution to the collective security of the region and the maintenance of the global rules-based order.
And one of the issues within our region we are witnessing the largest conventional military build-up that the world has seen since the end of the second world war. And it’s not Australia who is doing that, but that shapes the world in which we live.
We’re completely confident these are in complete compliance with non proliferation.

Government has promised not to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel as part of the nuclear-powered submarine program
The Albanese government has requested formal talks with the global nuclear watchdog to allay any concerns Aukus could lead to undeclared nuclear activities in Australia or the diversion of enriched uranium.
The government has also invited senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit Australia this year, attempting to head off a fresh campaign from China, which urged the body not to fall for “high-sounding rhetoric”.

British stance edges closer to the US, but many MPs want government to go further and designate China as a threat
While Britain’s conflict with Russia is playing out on the battlefield of Ukraine, escalating tensions between London and Beijing are largely unfolding a little more discreetly at home: in universities, among researchers and in hi-tech and other strategic businesses.
It may not be a high-profile drama of poisonings and deadly weapons supply, but hundreds of Chinese researchers have been turned away from British projects over the last couple of years, as trust between the two countries has been eroded.

Exclusive: Foreign Office rejected record number of academics in 2022 on national security grounds
More than 1,000 scientists and postgraduate students were barred from working in the UK last year on national security grounds, amid a major government crackdown on research collaborations with China.
Figures obtained by the Guardian reveal that a record 1,104 scientists and postgraduate students were rejected by Foreign Office vetting in 2022, up from 128 in 2020 and just 13 in 2016.

Former Labor prime minister Paul Keating savages his own party for signing up to the Aukus submarine deal. Keating calls the Aukus press event held in the US with Anthony Albanese, Joe Biden and Rishi Sunak 'kabuki theatre'. The former PM says one of the 'principle problems' of the deal is that 'defence has overtaken foreign policy'. He goes on to attack the foreign minister, Penny Wong, saying, 'running around the Pacific Islands with a lei around your neck handing out money, which is what Penny does, is not foreign policy'

Australia is already deeply enmeshed within the US defence establishment and its security planning is increasingly reliant on stability in Washington
The Aukus pact has revealed its long-awaited plan that would make Australia the seventh member of an exclusive club of nuclear-propulsion states.
Aukus is, we’re told, a high-risk endeavour but one that will yield potentially high rewards in terms of Australia’s ability to defend its sovereign interests and shape the regional security environment. Indeed, it reflects Australia’s anxieties about the changing security environment in Asia, especially concerning a rising China, and its willingness to step into the role of a “regional power”.

A multibillion-dollar oil drilling and pipeline project is displacing thousands of people in Uganda and Tanzania, and ravaging pristine habitats. Environmentalists are fighting to stop it, but the governments are all in.

Also, U.S. markets seem to stabilize and Xi Jinping tightens his control over China’s economy.

Xi Jinping is revamping China’s regulatory framework so the ruling Communist Party can assert more direct control over financial policy.

Plans for the two countries to restore diplomatic relations are welcome, but are only a modest step forward
“Perhaps the first major diplomatic example of a post-America Middle East,” one analyst. He was describing Iran and Saudi Arabia’s agreement last week – a surprise to most observers, and something of a coup for China, which brokered it. The volatile rivalry between the two nations has been since the Iranian revolution of 1979. Security concerns, claims to regional leadership, ethno-sectarian rivalries and other factors have all played their part. The repercussions have been profound. The tensions contributed to Iran’s all-out support for the Syrian regime, fuelled the war in Yemen, where more than 150,000 have died, and accelerated the disintegration of the state in Lebanon. Ties were cut when Iranian protesters stormed Saudi diplomatic missions over Riyadh’s execution of a revered Shia cleric.
But while last week’s announcement was welcome, it is only a beginning. Assuming the deal goes ahead – there are two months for details to be ironed out – the containment of Saudi-Iranian tensions will not necessarily lead to a deeper rapprochement, let alone end Lebanon’s woes or in Yemen.

Dr Jiang Yanyong revealed true extent of 2003 outbreak and was put under house arrest for denouncing Tiananmen Square massacre
A military surgeon who exposed the Chinese government’s cover-up of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic 20 years ago and lived for years under intermittent house arrest has died in Beijing. He was 91.
Dr Jiang Yanyong died of pneumonia and other illnesses on Saturday, according to two of his friends. One said Jiang had contracted the virus in January in a wave that swept across China after zero-Covid curbs were lifted, although it was unclear if his death was directly caused by the virus.