Speaker 1: So it's timely that we get to access from nine
Speaker 1: News Jonathan Curzly to bring us up to date with
Speaker 1: some of these pretty challenging times in the United States.
Speaker 1: He's up nice and early for us. Jonathan.
Speaker 2: Good morning, Tony, Good morning to you and all the
Speaker 2: listeners across the vast expanse of Australia.
Speaker 1: It's a tricky one as to where we start. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's because I think when we spoke early in the
Speaker 1: week JK, it's about this is a movable feast in
Speaker 1: so many ways.
Speaker 2: Look, everything with Iran Israel in the Middle East can
Speaker 2: change hour by hour, and we've seen that take place
Speaker 2: over the course of well the last seven days of
Speaker 2: fighting or so. Yesterday we had some reporting out of
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal that Donald Trump had approved attack
Speaker 2: plans but essentially was holding off. He wants to try
Speaker 2: and find some sort of diplomatic path to this. And
Speaker 2: essentially what it's opened up is there is this feud
Speaker 2: within the MAGA movement, if you like, because for so
Speaker 2: long Donald Trump has insisted he is a president who
Speaker 2: would not be entering into wars, entering into far away conflicts,
Speaker 2: and that is exactly what he is considering doing right now,
Speaker 2: he is weighing up the possibility. He's had two meetings
Speaker 2: in the situation room now with his National Security Council,
Speaker 2: this national security team, weighing up exactly what action he
Speaker 2: could take against Iran. Now, a lot of the speculation
Speaker 2: if America does enter this war from a military perspective,
Speaker 2: has been about the so called busterbug, the buster bucker bombs,
Speaker 2: that it could be dropped on Iram's Ki nuclear sites.
Speaker 2: Now he's reportedly questioning whether that could work, whether his
Speaker 2: military people are confident in its success. Clearly there's a
Speaker 2: lot going through his mind at the moment about what
Speaker 2: he does next. He still wants to leave a diplomatic
Speaker 2: door open, and essentially he has done yesterday say he
Speaker 2: won't make a decision until the last second. Now he
Speaker 2: hasn't said when that last second is going to be.
Speaker 2: But last night we saw that this war between Israel
Speaker 2: and Iran just continues to escalate. Iran managing to strike
Speaker 2: in Israeli hospital in and around the Tel Aviv area.
Speaker 2: Thankfully the patients had been evacuated out of there, but
Speaker 2: Israeli's lawn with an extraordinary response, accusing Iran of carrying
Speaker 2: out terrorism, of being war criminals, and they are now
Speaker 2: weighing up their next move too. So as I say,
Speaker 2: we could talk in an hour or two from now
Speaker 2: and all of this could have moved even further. That's
Speaker 2: just how fluid this situation is. That's just how fluid
Speaker 2: war is.
Speaker 1: It'd be fascinated to sit in that situation room and
Speaker 1: here a what was being reported to him and how
Speaker 1: the president reacts to those reports.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, to be a fly on the wars of
Speaker 2: that situation room. I mean, it has been the site
Speaker 2: of so many crucial decisions for American presidents over the years.
Speaker 2: Be it the strike to kill Osama bin Laden, be
Speaker 2: it strikes on Iraq, Afghanistan, be it other key moments
Speaker 2: of national security for a United States president to consider.
Speaker 2: And now once again you've got the president of the
Speaker 2: United States sitting in the key chair inside that situation room,
Speaker 2: receiving key advice from his military officials, from his national
Speaker 2: security team about what could be a path forward. Clearly,
Speaker 2: he would have had the options laid out to him
Speaker 2: about everything that could be possible, every single option that
Speaker 2: the United States has, both from a military perspective and
Speaker 2: a diplomatic perspective, but he has made it clear that
Speaker 2: his patience is running out. You can gauge by what
Speaker 2: he said over the course of the last few days.
Speaker 2: He appears to be leaning towards some sort of military move.
Speaker 2: He has said on truth Social within the last sort
Speaker 2: of couple of hours or so that the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 2: which first reported that he had approved attack plans but
Speaker 2: was waiting to give the fidal order. He said that
Speaker 2: the Wall Street Journal doesn't know his thinking, and I mean,
Speaker 2: to be honest, the only person who does know he's
Speaker 2: thinking to him, and the world will find out what
Speaker 2: his response is essentially when he says it. I mean,
Speaker 2: his national security teams, defense officials will know shortly beforehand.
Speaker 2: But he is the one now with the decision in
Speaker 2: the palm of his hands. What is he going to do?
Speaker 2: Because the decision he makes is going to be consequential,
Speaker 2: not just for the Israel Iran conflict. It's going to be
Speaker 2: consequential for the region of the Middle East. It's going
Speaker 2: to be consequential for the world, and ultimately too from
Speaker 2: a domestic perspective, from human it's going to be consequential
Speaker 2: for his power within the Magan movement and whether the
Speaker 2: Megan movement is going to splinter over this issue. I mean,
Speaker 2: there is so much at play right now. The stakes
Speaker 2: really in this situation now could not be higher.
Speaker 1: Jonathan as a senior journo now and working in news
Speaker 1: for many, many years, and you see those reports come
Speaker 1: from that Wall Street Journal for example, does it somehow
Speaker 1: in the back of your given everything else that you're
Speaker 1: doing in every given day become a bit irritating because
Speaker 1: how can they publish that?
Speaker 2: Well, there's some elements of this. I am going to
Speaker 2: talk to the Wall Street chugs reporting specifically. You know,
Speaker 2: I don't know personally the reporters in question, but there
Speaker 2: are senior news journalists in this country who report crucial
Speaker 2: details and are very close to the White House officials,
Speaker 2: to the White House administration, to military officials. A lot
Speaker 2: of this information gets out to a number of US
Speaker 2: news outlets and it gets out quickly. Now, the only
Speaker 2: way it gets out quickly across such a broad stance
Speaker 2: is that the officials who are briefing this out want
Speaker 2: it to be out there. I think what you're seeing now, though, Tony,
Speaker 2: is Donald Trump is playing the ultimate game of brinkmanship diplomacy.
Speaker 2: He is driving Iran to the very brink. I mean,
Speaker 2: just back of what he said over the course of
Speaker 2: the last few days. He put out a message saying
Speaker 2: that people in Tehran needed to evacuate, they needed to
Speaker 2: get out. He then said that he knew where Ayatola
Speaker 2: Kamione was and he wasn't going to kill him yet.
Speaker 2: Now he's essentially saying his entire frustration and patients has
Speaker 2: run out. All of this is a message to Iran,
Speaker 2: essentially saying you have one last shot at this. There
Speaker 2: is some reporting that his Middle East on voy Step
Speaker 2: Weekop has been in touch with Iran's foreign minister the
Speaker 2: entire time, has been trying to find some sort of
Speaker 2: diplomatic path to get around back to the table. But
Speaker 2: the only deal that Donald Trump is going to want
Speaker 2: is for Iran to say we are not going to
Speaker 2: have a nuclear program at all. There was some suggestion
Speaker 2: yesterday from Iran's foreign minister when he put out a
Speaker 2: public statement of middle of the afternoon Australian Eastern Time.
Speaker 2: Essentially he said Iran does not have a nuclear program.
Speaker 2: Now evidence may well suggest otherwise, But the key question
Speaker 2: for the world is how far advanced has Iran actually been,
Speaker 2: because for fifteen or twenty years, we've kept hearing that
Speaker 2: Iran is months away or weeks away from developing a
Speaker 2: nuclear weapon, and we've seen no firm evidence of that yet.
Speaker 2: We have seen nuclear sites that they clearly are that
Speaker 2: they have that they are using in some way, shape
Speaker 2: or form, but there is great mystery around exactly how
Speaker 2: far advanced Iran's technology is. You also have to look
Speaker 2: at the situation as it stands now that the barrage
Speaker 2: of missiles Aroan it's been sending into Israel has been
Speaker 2: reducing quite significantly. When it first started, it was perhaps
Speaker 2: one hundred missiles every single time they would launch a barrage.
Speaker 2: Now maybe it's twenty to thirty every single time. Last
Speaker 2: night's was about twenty five when they struck the hospital.
Speaker 2: But they are managing to penetrate Israel's iron dome, and
Speaker 2: that is a key concern for Israel. They are managing
Speaker 2: to have direct hits, they're managing to have direct strikes,
Speaker 2: they're managing to kill an injure people. So clearly they
Speaker 2: are exposing a gap in Israel's iron dome that has
Speaker 2: long been fancied and savored so much so Donald Trump
Speaker 2: wanted what he called a Golden Dome, which was essentially
Speaker 2: the same system across the giant, vast expanse of the
Speaker 2: United States of America, an anti missile system. So, look,
Speaker 2: this conflict is far from over. Donald Trump is yet
Speaker 2: to make a decision on what his movie is going
Speaker 2: to be. When he does, it will be consequential. It
Speaker 2: will be arguably the most important decision by an American
Speaker 2: president and foreign conflicts in some considerable time. He now
Speaker 2: has to weigh in does he go in, does he
Speaker 2: use a bunker buster bomb, does he assist Israel in
Speaker 2: some other way, or does he find a way to
Speaker 2: do what he says he wants to do, and that
Speaker 2: is to be a man at peace and to end conflicts. Remember,
Speaker 2: he said he would end Ukraine Russia in one day.
Speaker 2: That hasn't happened. He said he was going to end
Speaker 2: the war between Israel and the musk That hasn't really
Speaker 2: happened either. So look, he hasn't met the markets that
Speaker 2: he put in front of himself. So this is now
Speaker 2: a key test for him, and the question is going
Speaker 2: to be, now, what does he do next? Because the
Speaker 2: eyes of the world are watching and they're bracing. You
Speaker 2: can see world leaders of posturing around their own cabinet decisions,
Speaker 2: their own cabinet discussion and trying to work out what
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is going to do. They're trying to sort
Speaker 2: of move their people out. We've seen Australians evacuated out
Speaker 2: of Israel. There are other nations moving their people out
Speaker 2: of these areas because they fear that this conflict is
Speaker 2: only going to worsen. Now it's all in the hands
Speaker 2: of the US president. His decision ultimately could decide where
Speaker 2: this all heads.
Speaker 1: No pressure Jonathan Scraid having the program for listeners right
Speaker 1: across Australia. Second, just before I let you go, have
Speaker 1: you had a look at a fuel, oil and gas prices?
Speaker 1: What are they paying in the United States? Any movement?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean the big market you always look to
Speaker 2: in these conflicts is what particularly around the Middle East,
Speaker 2: is what is happening to the price of oil. Now,
Speaker 2: let's take a look at crude oil for example, because
Speaker 2: go over the last five days and the crude oil
Speaker 2: while it was looking at round about I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the crude oil futures here, it was around about seventy
Speaker 2: five dollars round about a week ago. Now now it's sorry,
Speaker 2: it was sixty six, now it's up to seventy three.
Speaker 2: So prices are rising, and they rise because there's concern.
Speaker 2: They rise because there's a vulnerability. I mean, the big
Speaker 2: move next could be I mean Iran has sort of
Speaker 2: suggested that if there was an escalation in this conflict,
Speaker 2: then you could see the hookies start to attack American
Speaker 2: ships and see now that obviously, once you start putting
Speaker 2: those critical supply roots in jeopardy, then things like oil
Speaker 2: and gas are only going to rise further because it
Speaker 2: makes supply unreliable. That is a key shipping lane. Iran
Speaker 2: knows that the Hoopies know that, and this is now
Speaker 2: a critical point, not just for concern obviously about a
Speaker 2: much broader conflict erupting in the Middle East, which is
Speaker 2: really the last thing anybody wants to see, but when
Speaker 2: you look at these oil prices too, they are going
Speaker 2: to increase if the conflict continues because the possibility of
Speaker 2: shipping lanes being shut down that we get that oil
Speaker 2: out of the Middle East into other parts of the world, well,
Speaker 2: that creates significant problems. So there's flow on effects from
Speaker 2: everywhere it's not just a military aspect, but it's supply
Speaker 2: chain roots too, so this is critical. We saw it
Speaker 2: with golf war Mark one. We saw it with Golf
Speaker 2: war Mark two. We see it every time there's conflict
Speaker 2: in the Middle East. There is a concern around oil
Speaker 2: and oil supply, and that means ultimately that if you
Speaker 2: do not produce your own and you rely on getting
Speaker 2: it from the Middle East, then that is going to
Speaker 2: have a significant problem for anybody. It's not just consumers
Speaker 2: that the bows are wanting to fill up their cars.
Speaker 2: If anybody wanting to try and get their hands on
Speaker 2: oil is going to have a problem.
Speaker 1: Jonathan curzly, thank you. Going to enjoy some breakfast weekend.
Speaker 1: We'll talk next week.
Speaker 3: Always good to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Can only have a wonderful.
Speaker 1: Weekend, Jonathan Curzy. They're in the United States. A fantastic
Speaker 1: to get them available to us for Australia overnight. A
Speaker 1: couple of quick calls Pete in some of them warning thing, oh.
Speaker 3: Look are about people who impressed me?
Speaker 1: Please please. It's a great question. Is when you think
Speaker 1: about those favorite subjects at school or someone that you
Speaker 1: really admire in adulthood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well when I was about twenty. I was working
Speaker 3: in what's called the technical grades of the Postmaster General
Speaker 3: Research Department, and I worked with this engineer who had
Speaker 3: this incredible nack of turning mathematics into reality. And I
Speaker 3: said to myself, Oh, I'd like to be able to
Speaker 3: do that. So I changed from a technical course to
Speaker 3: an engineering course and well became a communications engineer. And
Speaker 3: then it's with the plover and then I kept going
Speaker 3: and got my electronics engineering degree and that's what I
Speaker 3: worked in for those years, from you know, seventy one
Speaker 3: to when I retired in twenty sixteen. A huge change
Speaker 3: in electronics that I had to go up several big
Speaker 3: learning curves and you know, such a life.
Speaker 1: Does that first still exist to some degree in terms
Speaker 1: of where it's all going electronically? Oh?
Speaker 3: Look, I the variation was huge. I actually was the
Speaker 3: key person in putting the first computer based control in
Speaker 3: a plant room in an airport in what was it
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty one or something like that, And it went
Speaker 3: from that simple stage to in nineteen eighty eight, a
Speaker 3: newtip came on the market called a field program or
Speaker 3: Gatoray are you happy for bit to keep?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Sure? For going beautiful thank you, which.
Speaker 3: Is a completely different chip. It's just a chip with
Speaker 3: a whole heat of digital resources inside it. So it
Speaker 3: made a huge leap in speed processing speed in that
Speaker 3: in the normal program, you execute one line at the time,
Speaker 3: and it's sharing the computer chip, that's sharing the memory
Speaker 3: and so on and so forth. In these chips, every
Speaker 3: line gets its own little bit of hardware associated with
Speaker 3: so instead of one light executing at a time, all
Speaker 3: the lines of code execute at the same time, and
Speaker 3: so huge changing computing. And I ended up working in
Speaker 3: that field substantially, and ended up in a company that
Speaker 3: did medical instrument development for the last fourteen years of
Speaker 3: my working life.
Speaker 1: Good work and congratulations on that. We need you hear
Speaker 1: from time to time. I've lost an email that was
Speaker 1: a very foot emails disappeared from a buddy screen and
Speaker 1: I'm really dirty about. Good on your pet. Keep in
Speaker 1: touch with the program. Thank you. Mike's in mentone morning, Michael.
Speaker 4: My Tony hair Young Well, thank you first to Young
Speaker 4: Jackson telling that the best pub in Melbourne is Young
Speaker 4: and Jackson.
Speaker 1: There it is that that's why we call him Young
Speaker 1: and Jackson. The very famous hotel Kinder of Flinders Street
Speaker 1: there and Swans the Street speaks there for all my
Speaker 1: life too.
Speaker 4: There's nothing better than sitting in that window and just watching.
Speaker 1: People, watching the world go by.
Speaker 2: Just watch.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but thank you, Tony. Please, you played, you played
Speaker 4: all night long. I woke up and it was all
Speaker 4: night long line of Richie playing.
Speaker 3: Yep, I watched.
Speaker 1: He's a birthday today. He's seventy six, the great Lionel Richie.
Speaker 3: Here's my childhood idol.
Speaker 4: I've met him twice and I have a tattoo of
Speaker 4: him on my no you dode Wow, Yeah, I do.
Speaker 4: And I just want to say thank you for putting
Speaker 4: his name forward in your show. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, we forget that he actually co wrote that beautiful
Speaker 1: thing to you, We Are the World, which was a
Speaker 1: messive hit as well. You USA for Africa. Remember that.
Speaker 4: And can I give you a song Tony for the people,
Speaker 4: for you and your listeners. Please that I have ever
Speaker 4: lost someone, it's called I hear your voice, Lionel Richie.
Speaker 4: I hear your voice.
Speaker 1: Keep listening. Well much fine to play a little bit
Speaker 1: of it later on for you, Michael.
Speaker 4: For your listeners, I know a few of because I
Speaker 4: listened to you during the week at night shift. I
Speaker 4: work nightshift, so I listened to you. I love you,
Speaker 4: I love night, I love three W I just want
Speaker 4: to dedicate this song. I hear your voice for those listeners.
Speaker 4: I hear your voice, Lionel Richie.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about turning into a promo. Michael, well done you,
Speaker 1: thanks so one double three six nine three. We'll get
Speaker 1: some calls in just a moment. Someone that you've always
Speaker 1: really admired, someone that you really admired. And why one
Speaker 1: double three six' nine three the other one we, had
Speaker 1: this is from our little icebreak Is i'm loving. This
Speaker 1: what was your favorite subject at? School favorite? Subject was it?
Speaker 1: Arithmetic was It? English it may have been a bit about, history,
Speaker 1: geography perhaps one double three six nine? Three and? Why
Speaker 1: and did that serve you well in the. Years and
Speaker 1: what's one family tradition that you would like to carry
Speaker 1: on into the. Future just that great family traditions that
Speaker 1: you may have had that you noticed as a, kid
Speaker 1: that stayed with the family. Forever and a day one
Speaker 1: double three six'. Nine three It is. Australia overnight I'm.
Speaker 1: Turning mack, good morning