Speaker 1: Already and this this is the Daily This is the
Speaker 1: Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the Daily OS. It's Wednesday, the twenty fifth
Speaker 1: of June. I'm Billy Fitzsimon's I'm Sam Kazlowski. For nearly
Speaker 1: two weeks now, Iran and Israel have been engaged in
Speaker 1: a war that has kept the world anxiously waiting to
Speaker 1: see what happens next. As we have covered this week already,
Speaker 1: the US effectively entered the war by bombing the three
Speaker 1: nuclear sites in Iran, which Iran responded to by launching
Speaker 1: missile strikes on US military basis in Qatar. Yesterday on
Speaker 1: the podcast, we asked what you still wanted to know,
Speaker 1: and we were inundated with questions, So today we are
Speaker 1: answering them.
Speaker 2: Billy, before we get into the podcast, I think it's
Speaker 2: important to kind of ground ourselves in when we're recording this.
Speaker 2: So we're recording this late on Tuesday. And the only
Speaker 2: reason I'm saying that is just because of how quickly
Speaker 2: the situation can change. In this story, give us a
Speaker 2: sense right now of where things are at as you
Speaker 2: and I are having this discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So just to catch everyone up some very brief
Speaker 1: contexts to start us off. So, Israel and Iran have
Speaker 1: been at war for about two weeks now, when Israel
Speaker 1: sent over the first missiles with the aim of destroying
Speaker 1: Iran's nuclear capabilities. Now, over the past weekend that we
Speaker 1: just had, the US effectively entered the war by bombing
Speaker 1: three nuclear sites in Iran. Like I mentioned earlier, and
Speaker 1: a key bit of context here is that the US
Speaker 1: is Israel's closest ally and so then yesterday morning we
Speaker 1: woke to the news that Iran had retaliated against the
Speaker 1: US with strikes on an American military base in Qatar.
Speaker 1: And that was one of America's well, that was America's
Speaker 1: most important military base in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: Yeah, America has about forty thousand US troops in the
Speaker 2: Middle East. Yeah, a large presence there. So there was
Speaker 2: an expectation that Iran would retaliate after the US strikes
Speaker 2: on the weekend, and sure enough this happened. Of course,
Speaker 2: because it's President Trump, we found out via our truth.
Speaker 1: Social yes, his own social media platform. If you want
Speaker 1: any more context about what has happened over the past
Speaker 1: two weeks, I recommend going back and listening to some
Speaker 1: of our other podcasts, which we'll give you a bit
Speaker 1: more context about what has happened. But back to what
Speaker 1: did happen yesterday. So Iran retaliated like we said, and
Speaker 1: Trump called Iran's response week and then hours later Trump
Speaker 1: actually declared that there had been a ceasefire between Israel
Speaker 1: and Iran. Now he said, like we said. Sam on
Speaker 1: his own social media platform, True Social he said, it
Speaker 1: has been fully agreed by and between Israel and Iran
Speaker 1: that there will be a complete and total ceasefire. He added,
Speaker 1: this is a war that could have gone on for
Speaker 1: years and destroyed the entire Middle East, but it didn't
Speaker 1: and it never will. It was a bit of an
Speaker 1: odd way to find out that there had been this ceasefire,
Speaker 1: because it obviously wasn't from either of the two key parties,
Speaker 1: being Iran or Israel. Now, it was quite confusing yesterday
Speaker 1: afternoon here in Sydney trying to figure out whether or
Speaker 1: not there definitely had been this ceasefire agreement. Eventually, after
Speaker 1: a few hours, both Iran and Israel confirmed there had
Speaker 1: been this seasfire. But then literally within minutes or maybe
Speaker 1: just under an hour, we heard from the IDF that
Speaker 1: Iran had launched missiles, and then Israel confirmed that they
Speaker 1: had launched missiles in response to that, so the ceasefire
Speaker 1: had broken effectively.
Speaker 2: Billy, I want to go to some audience questions now,
Speaker 2: and let's start with a really easy one. Essentially, are
Speaker 2: we heading towards World War three? And you and I
Speaker 2: have talked about this quite a bit over the past
Speaker 2: two weeks. There's a couple of ways to tackle this.
Speaker 1: What's your answer, Well, I think this is the one
Speaker 1: that kind of in my friendship circles. Everyone is asking
Speaker 1: this question, and even on Google searches, on Google trends,
Speaker 1: you can see that over the past two weeks, searches
Speaker 1: for whether or not there will be World War three
Speaker 1: have completely spiked. What's hard about this is that there
Speaker 1: is no set definition of.
Speaker 2: A world war, and that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, so I wanted the Daily Ods
Speaker 1: to do a post on this last week because I
Speaker 1: thought it was such an interesting question that so many
Speaker 1: of us were asking. But it was really hard to
Speaker 1: answer because there's no globally accepted definition of what is
Speaker 1: a world war, and so there's nothing to say that
Speaker 1: if X happens, then we're officially in a world war.
Speaker 1: Historians do generally accept that a world war is a
Speaker 1: conflict that draws in multiple countries with direct involvement. But again,
Speaker 1: there's no wee exact number of how many countries need
Speaker 1: to get involved for it to officially be declared a
Speaker 1: world war.
Speaker 2: I've read some commentary from historians when we were doing
Speaker 2: this sticking that it also can be determined by the
Speaker 2: number of continents involved. I mean, there's so many different
Speaker 2: ways to kind of chop this up, but at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, it does seem like it's a
Speaker 2: little bit I don't want to make this too crass,
Speaker 2: but it does seem like it's a bit of a
Speaker 2: kind of vibe. Yeah, and it's a bit of kind
Speaker 2: of when somebody says it, then that's what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One thing to note that tda's political journalist Harry
Speaker 1: was discussing last week when we were all talking about
Speaker 1: this in the office, is that after nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: the US of course invaded Afghanistan, and while that conflict
Speaker 1: escalated and brought in multiple countries, including Australia, it wasn't
Speaker 1: considered a world war. And I thought that was a
Speaker 1: really good point that that is a conflict where there
Speaker 1: were many countries involved and it wasn't considered a world war.
Speaker 1: But it's this really interesting question of how do you
Speaker 1: define a world war?
Speaker 2: And I think that you know, so, there might be
Speaker 2: points where some leaders do come out and say it
Speaker 2: is a world war. And if that's not almost endorsed
Speaker 2: by the international community and adopted as the view, then
Speaker 2: I'm sure you won't have consensus even then about whether
Speaker 2: it's a world war or not. On the other hand,
Speaker 2: I do feel like if there's conflicts that almost unify,
Speaker 2: if there's alliances between say Russia, China and Iran, all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, it does feel like one battlefield, and
Speaker 2: that I could imagine the term world war being used.
Speaker 2: But I do want to say, just to settle everyone's anxiety,
Speaker 2: we're a long way from that. We are a long.
Speaker 1: Way, yes, and yet the answer to it today is
Speaker 1: we're not in World War three and we are not
Speaker 1: close to it at the moment.
Speaker 2: I'm keen to ask you another question, but just quickly,
Speaker 2: let's hear from our sponsor. Well, let's talk a little
Speaker 2: bit more about us, and by us, I mean here
Speaker 2: in Australia, we had a lot of questions from people
Speaker 2: asking about the local impact and how we and how
Speaker 2: we would be affected by the growing conflicts in the
Speaker 2: Middle East. What's your take on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the first thing to say is that
Speaker 1: Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Alberanezi has been at pains to
Speaker 1: emphasize in all of the press conferences that he has
Speaker 1: done over the past few weeks that Australia is not
Speaker 1: a central player in this conflict at all like the
Speaker 1: US is for example. You know, we're not a key
Speaker 1: ally of Israel or Iran, so in terms of our
Speaker 1: domestic and national security, there's very minimal impact, if at all,
Speaker 1: there in saying that Australia is a key ally of
Speaker 1: the US. And so the Australian government has said that
Speaker 1: it supports what the US did in bombing the nuclear
Speaker 1: sites in Iran, but that's kind of been the extent
Speaker 1: of our involvement in this. One thing it could impact
Speaker 1: though for Australians is travel well, actually it already has
Speaker 1: impacted the travel for many Australians both leaving Australia and
Speaker 1: also many who are trying to come back home to Australia.
Speaker 1: And this is impacting people, even if they're not trying
Speaker 1: to go to the Middle East, which I imagine now
Speaker 1: is very few people for travel. There's not really one
Speaker 1: answer here, I think, just as a general statement, the
Speaker 1: world's airspace has definitely been impacted, and basically at the
Speaker 1: drop of a hat, there have been airspaces, especially over
Speaker 1: the Middle East, that have been completely closed and that
Speaker 1: has impacted certain routes. For example, Dubai, which is one
Speaker 1: of the busiest airports in the world and is a
Speaker 1: stopover for many flights leaving Australia, that has of course
Speaker 1: been impacted. But I'm sure for anyone who has booked
Speaker 1: flights that are coming up in the coming weeks, it's
Speaker 1: something to check in with the airline that you're flying with.
Speaker 2: As we all know all too well, even if there's
Speaker 2: no direct cancelations that affect you, there's always a backlog
Speaker 2: of traffic and there's always systems that are a little
Speaker 2: bit more under stress, be it at airport security or this.
Speaker 2: So it will definitely impact anyone traveling internationally, I'd say
Speaker 2: for the next couple of weeks at least.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would check Smart Traveler for wherever you
Speaker 1: are heading, they have a lot of detailed information about
Speaker 1: any security risks about destinations all over the world.
Speaker 2: Another way it could impact Australians though, is not those
Speaker 2: traveling but those who remain here, and it could impact
Speaker 2: us at the petrol tank or at the supermarket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Iran is a major oil producer and with
Speaker 1: this conflict there is of course the chance that their
Speaker 1: oil production facilities could be damaged, or even if they
Speaker 1: haven't been damaged, the aspect of the transport getting from
Speaker 1: Iran to other places around the world will inevitably be impacted.
Speaker 1: And so there is the expectation that this is going
Speaker 1: to likely mean that there will be lower global supply
Speaker 1: of oil and that will of course impact petrol prices.
Speaker 1: So there's the expectation that petrol prices will likely go up,
Speaker 1: imagine by quite a lot in the coming weeks.
Speaker 2: Well, there's kind of two ways to think about that.
Speaker 2: You're totally right that it's about whether the supply of
Speaker 2: oil has been damaged by an if the strikes and
Speaker 2: some of the logistical challenges of getting oil out of
Speaker 2: a country that's in the middle of kind of a
Speaker 2: state of war. The other aspect, though, is that it
Speaker 2: could actually be used by Iran as a global response,
Speaker 2: so they could actually say we're not sending as much
Speaker 2: oil out into the.
Speaker 1: World as in they could gatekeep it.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And because it's such a major distributor of oil,
Speaker 2: that could be quite a powerful way to affect the
Speaker 2: economies of those that you're wishing to target. In either
Speaker 2: of those cases, You're right, it could be quite quick.
Speaker 2: And it's not even necessarily going to rise in price
Speaker 2: because there's not as much oil right here on that day.
Speaker 2: It's more about the price in anxiety and people perhaps
Speaker 2: panicking and going to fill up tanks of petrol because
Speaker 2: they think it might get it more expensive later.
Speaker 1: So there's instantly more demand.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and that's where kind of panic can take over
Speaker 2: economic markets. And you see that vision, it's almost like COVID, right,
Speaker 2: it's supermarkets. You see vision of empty shelves all.
Speaker 1: Over the place. So likely we're not there yet.
Speaker 2: We're not there yet. I feel like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of well.
Speaker 1: We shouldn't use the word yet, because we don't know
Speaker 1: if we'll get that again. There could be the ceasefire
Speaker 1: and this could be over.
Speaker 2: I'd be pretty comfortable saying that we'll see some impact
Speaker 2: on petrol prices, but I don't think it's going to
Speaker 2: be you know, dramatic at this stage. Yeah, Okay, so Billy.
Speaker 2: One of the other aspects of this story that's coming
Speaker 2: up a lot in the way that global leaders are
Speaker 2: talking about potential Iranian responses is this idea of terror
Speaker 2: attacks being used by Iran, state sponsored terror attacks being
Speaker 2: used by Iran as a response against those who attacks them,
Speaker 2: being the US and its allies, including Australia. So the
Speaker 2: questions that we got were kind of, what are the
Speaker 2: chances of a terrorist attack in western countries and have
Speaker 2: those chances gone up in the past couple of days.
Speaker 1: Just quickly on that. I think one thing that's also
Speaker 1: perhaps important to note is that there could be the
Speaker 1: state sponsored terrorism attacks, but then also we have seen
Speaker 1: that the tension amongst communities is particularly high at the moment,
Speaker 1: not just from the past two weeks, but over the
Speaker 1: past two years, and so you could also have sole
Speaker 1: actors who emerge from that and conduct terrorist attacks that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily on behalf of Iran.
Speaker 2: And we've heard that from Australia's security leadership that the
Speaker 2: temperature is higher exactly at a social level here in
Speaker 2: Australia and at an international level.
Speaker 1: As well, and it's actually because of that that the
Speaker 1: temperature amongst the communities is so high at the moment
Speaker 1: that in August of last year, Australia's national terrorism threat
Speaker 1: actually increased to probable. And so what that means is,
Speaker 1: according to Australian security officials, they say, it means that
Speaker 1: there is quote a greater than fifty percent chance of
Speaker 1: an onshore attack or attack planning in the next twelve months. Again,
Speaker 1: in terms of why it is at this level, it
Speaker 1: does specifically mention what is happening in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: So it says the rise of individual grievance narratives and
Speaker 1: how they are expressed are impacting society's ability to find
Speaker 1: common ground. It goes on a little bit more, but
Speaker 1: then it says global events such as the conflict in
Speaker 1: the Middle East have resonated in Australia and will continue
Speaker 1: to do so. So that's more talking about those isolated incidents.
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Anthony Alberanezi was asked this week if there
Speaker 1: is an increased threat of terrorism in Australia now after
Speaker 1: what we have seen over the past two weeks, and
Speaker 1: he said that ASIO, the National Security Agency here in Australia,
Speaker 1: is constantly monitoring, but he said there has been no
Speaker 1: change in any of the advice that has been issued.
Speaker 2: And if you look at the way that that's being
Speaker 2: framed in the US, it's a little different, and I'd
Speaker 2: say that's because the US is a much more direct
Speaker 2: actor in this. So the US Department of Homeland SEC,
Speaker 2: for example, it's said in the statement that there is
Speaker 2: a heightened threat environment in the US and that the
Speaker 2: conflicts could contribute to US based individuals plotting additional attacks.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a little different in Australia. We
Speaker 2: haven't got that direct involvement and we haven't had the
Speaker 2: same language being used by our leaders. Billy, I've got
Speaker 2: one more question, and it's a bit of a different
Speaker 2: type of question. It's more a question about, as our
Speaker 2: editor in chief, how you kind of run our newsroom here.
Speaker 2: And the question that we get a lot is about
Speaker 2: how we use our comments section and more specifically, why
Speaker 2: we turn it off on posts that are related to
Speaker 2: what's been happening in the past two weeks. Talk us
Speaker 2: through the decisions being made behind the scenes and what
Speaker 2: goes into a decision like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, I guess we're talking about it now in
Speaker 1: light of the past two weeks, but we've been having
Speaker 1: conversations about this over the past two years, especially in
Speaker 1: light of what has been happening with the Israel jamaswa
Speaker 1: in Gaza, because of course, we receive so many different
Speaker 1: messages from our audience to know why exactly we do
Speaker 1: have to turn our comment section off, and the answer
Speaker 1: is because of hate speech. You know, whenever we have
Speaker 1: left the comments on, it has spiraled into hate speech,
Speaker 1: into racist comments. Sometimes it is between audience members to
Speaker 1: other audience members. Sometimes it's from audience members to members
Speaker 1: of the TDA staff room. And we obviously have an
Speaker 1: obligation to protect employees at TDA. I mean, to be
Speaker 1: completely honest, we are a small team, and to moderate
Speaker 1: that kind of conversation when it has spiraled into thousands
Speaker 1: of comments of hate speech, we can't moderate that. It's impossible.
Speaker 2: And just to add to that, there's this whole other
Speaker 2: aspect of this that's important that I spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time thinking about, and that's our legal obligations and
Speaker 2: our kind of obligations to the profession of journalism. So
Speaker 2: there's the MEAA code, which is the Media Ethics Alliance.
Speaker 2: They have a code about how responsible publishers should be
Speaker 2: moderating hate speech. The United Nations has a code for
Speaker 2: media on how hate speech should be moderated. There's also
Speaker 2: always risk of defamation lawsuits, you know, causing damage to somebody,
Speaker 2: mental damage to somebody by allowing comments to be there.
Speaker 2: And if we had a bigger team, and if we
Speaker 2: were a more well resourced newsroom and not you know,
Speaker 2: under twenty people all age thirty and below, who are
Speaker 2: giving this whole media thing a crack, then we would
Speaker 2: do stuff like have full time moderators and perhaps you
Speaker 2: would see more open comments sections, but ones that are
Speaker 2: tightly moderated minute to minute. But it is interesting, as
Speaker 2: you said, that even the biggest media organizations in the world,
Speaker 2: those with almost unlimited resources, even those guys aren't keeping
Speaker 2: up with minute to minute moderation. And everybody is really
Speaker 2: feeling like in the best interests of their readers and
Speaker 2: their staff that limiting comments on social media when you
Speaker 2: can see evidence that it's descending into a bit of chaos,
Speaker 2: seems to be the responsible move there.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, in the ABC, who has
Speaker 1: thousands of employees and does have full time moderators, they
Speaker 1: are still turning off their comments on pretty much all
Speaker 1: posts when it comes to the Middle East.
Speaker 2: And I think it's a real shame because there are
Speaker 2: in all of those posts really interesting conversations that are
Speaker 2: happening between good natured people who are curious about the
Speaker 2: world around them and how this affects the changing nature
Speaker 2: of their worlds. I think there's a lot of good
Speaker 2: stuff in there, but as you've just said, we can't
Speaker 2: really expose ourselves or our people, or our listeners and
Speaker 2: readers to that sort of risk, and it's going to
Speaker 2: be a challenging next couple of months. I think. I
Speaker 2: think this is not going to get any karma just yet,
Speaker 2: or certainly not going to get less complex. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so I think we've got the responsibility to our listeners
Speaker 2: to keep them in the loop with how we're making
Speaker 2: these sorts of decisions and hopefully doing the best job
Speaker 2: at explaining what's going on as we possibly can.
Speaker 1: One other thing that I just want to add is
Speaker 1: that I hope no one listened to that thought that
Speaker 1: it's because the Daily ODS doesn't believe that we should
Speaker 1: be criticized at times. You know, criticism of media outlets
Speaker 1: around the world is an important part of any democracy,
Speaker 1: and it's got nothing to do with that. It's when
Speaker 1: the comments cross the line of being personal, racist or
Speaker 1: being hate speech that we have to draw a line
Speaker 1: and protect people. But it's not because we believe that
Speaker 1: TDA shouldn't be criticized.
Speaker 2: No, it's one of the best bits of a modern
Speaker 2: democracy is free and fair press. We're always going to
Speaker 2: do our best to try and protect that. Definitely, Billy,
Speaker 2: thank you for a really difficult but a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 2: They're a fast moving one as well. I would encourage
Speaker 2: people to keep an eye on our Instagram throughout the
Speaker 2: day if they want to keep up to speed with
Speaker 2: some of the developments that happen throughout the day. It's
Speaker 2: always good to come back to the podcast have a
Speaker 2: listen to kind of get a sense of the big picture.
Speaker 2: But if you wanted more of those up to speed
Speaker 2: updates will always be over there on social media. Up Billy,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, Thank you, and thank you for
Speaker 2: listening to the Daily Ods this morning. Going to be
Speaker 2: back with some headlines later this afternoon until then have
Speaker 2: a great day.
Speaker 1: Bye.
Speaker 2: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 2: Bungelung Calcoton woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 2: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 2: Strait Island and nations.
Speaker 1: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 1: both past and present.