☕️ Australia's Parliament returns

It’s officially my favourite time of year, where we all become armchair experts in tennis.

The Australian Open started yesterday, and runs until 1 February.

“A teenage boy is in a critical condition in hospital after being bitten by a shark in Sydney Harbour late this afternoon.”
NSW Police in a statement on Sunday. The boy was bitten near Shark Beach in Vaucluse. He remains in hospital in a critical condition.

Five years
The length of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s prison term, after he was found guilty of refusing to comply with police orders to go into custody following his December 2024 overnight declaration of martial law.

1966
Indira Gandhi was sworn in as India’s first, and to this day only, female Prime Minister.

2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan Opposition Leader María Corina Machado has announced she “presented” her award to U.S. President Donald Trump at a meeting in Washington D.C. on Thursday (local time).

The U.S. recently launched airstrikes on Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolás Maduro.

The announcement comes days after the Nobel Foundation released a statement clarifying that a Nobel Prize “cannot be revoked, shared, or transferred to others.”

Machado is Venezuela’s Opposition Leader. She went into hiding in August 2024, citing concerns for her safety.

The Nobel Institute gave Machado the award for her promotion of democratic rights for the people of Venezuela.

Last month, she was seen in public for the first time in months, met by a crowd of supporters in Oslo after the 2025 Nobel Prize Ceremony.

Machado told reporters on Thursday she had “presented” Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize.

On 9 January, the Nobel Foundation released a statement saying that once a prize is announced, “the decision is final and stands for all time.”

The organisation referred to a longer post, which says its decisions cannot be appealed, and the committee “will not comment” on what recipients “may say and do after they have been awarded”.

While Nobel prizes can be given to multiple people at once, after they have been awarded, they “can neither be revoked, shared, nor transferred to others,” the post added.

Reporting by Emily Donohoe.

Last week, the Government proposed a bill to broaden hate speech protections and create a national gun register, in the wake of the Bondi terror attack that killed 15 innocent people.

Over the weekend, the PM said the two laws will now be separated, due to opposition to the hate speech laws. The government expects the gun legislation to be enshrined into law, but the fate of the hate speech changes is less clear.

Since the hate speech bill was announced, MPs across the political spectrum have criticised the proposal, with Opposition Leader Sussan Ley saying she is unsure whether the Coalition will support it.

The Government’s bill initially included tougher penalties for hate speech, such as 12 year jail terms for “hate preachers,” and a national gun buyback scheme.

It would have also created a new standalone offence for publicly promoting or inciting hatred on the basis of race or ethnicity.

Under the initial bill, visas could be refused or cancelled on the grounds of association with prohibited hate groups or engaging in hate-motivated conduct, even without a criminal conviction.

At a press conference on Thursday, Ley called the bill “half-baked” and “pretty unsalvageable,” arguing it fails to address the root causes of the Bondi attack.

The Opposition Leader said the bill “doesn’t address Islamic extremism [or] rising antisemitism.” In particular, she called out a loophole allowing religious leaders to avoid hate speech charges if they were quoting a religious text.

Ley added the Coalition wants to enshrine a formal definition of antisemitism in law, which this bill does not include.

Ley argued the Government has rushed the process of developing the bill.

She also noted the Coalition was “not consulted” prior to the bill’s announcement.

Ley said her party would wait for a Parliamentary committee to finish scrutinising the bill before ultimately deciding whether or not to support it.

The Greens also announced on Thursday they won’t support the hate speech bill in its current form. Greens Leader Larissa Waters said it could have “unintended consequences” and be “weaponised to shut down legitimate political protest.”

The party is calling for hate speech protections to be extended to include LGBTQIA+ people and those with disabilities.

The Greens also raised concerns about making it easier for the Home Affairs Minister to cancel visas “because someone ‘might’ commit an offence,” saying it “is not a credible legal test.”

The Greens have said that while they are opposed to the hate speech measures, they do support the firearms bill.

Labor on Saturday ditched the racial vilification elements of the legislation, and split the provisions from proposed gun reforms.

Politicians are returning to Canberra this week, where the two pieces of legislation will be debated in Parliament.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also told the ABC late last week he was “stunned” by the Coalition saying the bill was rushed, pointing to repeated requests from the Opposition for Parliament to be recalled during Christmas week.

Reporting by Elliot Lawry.

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A team of experts from universities in France and Scotland have discovered tens of thousands of previously unknown hills, ridges and mountain features. The breakthrough transforms our view of Antarctica, with researchers comparing the leap to upgrading from an old film camera to high-definition photography. It's hoped the new map will help scientists better predict Antarctica’s future in a changing climate.

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Reporting by Emma Gillespie.

If you were a famous person, how would you handle AI using your voice and face?

Matthew McConaughey’s answer: trademarking himself. 

In a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) exclusive, the actor’s lawyers said they’ve issued eight new trademarks intended to stop AI from using the ‘Interstellar’ star’s “voice and likeness without permission.”

Trademarks include seven-second and three-second clips and the audio of his line “Alright, alright, alright” from ‘Dazed and Confused’.

In an email to the WSJ, McConaughey said that he wants “to create a clear perimeter around ownership with consent and attribution the norm in an AI world.” 

His lawyers told the WSJ that they aren’t currently aware of any actors who have secured trademarks, potentially meaning that McConaughey is the first.

Reporting by Anju Dhanushkodi.

Hearings have begun in the first case of its kind at the International Court of Justice. West African country The Gambia has brought a case against Myanmar for alleged acts of genocide against the Rohingya people. When legal proceedings were launched in 2019, it was the first time an alleged genocide had been submitted to the ICJ by a country not directly affected by the genocide. The verdict of this unprecedented case could influence future cases, like the pending trial against Israel, brought by South Africa, for alleged acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Today, we’re going to explain everything you know about the ICJ case against Myanmar.