A personal view of Australian and International Politics

Sunday, 12 July 2026

US congressman says he was detained by armed Israeli settlers in occupied West Bank.

Ro Khanna said settlers were armed with US-made weapons and Israel Defense Forces refused to intervene

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday from a Palestinian village, the progressive US House Democrat from California said his detention happened the previous day while his delegation visited an area of the southern West Bank that has experienced repeated attacks by Israeli settlers.

Khanna recounted how settlers carrying US-made M4 rifles surrounded the group’s van.

Ilhan Karajeh in a headscarf examines damaged plant stems in a field with hills in the background

“We were at a village that Israeli settlers had destroyed – they had destroyed the school, they had destroyed that village, and we were just looking at it,” Khanna said.

Referring to the Israel Defense Forces, which are funded in part by US military aid, Khanna continued: “And these hoodlums … detain us. They block off the road. And then they call the IDF and the IDF is on their side, not on the side of the Americans.”

Khanna also told Reuters: “I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers, 21- and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us, the arrogance of those young IDF soldiers that my tax dollars are funding – having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans, no respect that there was an American congressperson in that bus, and laughing when our translator told them that there are Americans there and the American embassy is concerned.”

Khanna aide Cameron Kasky wrote on X that he was there when the congressman’s group was detained, saying: “The IDF showed up to back up the settlers, not the US congressman.”

Khanna added that the encounter illustrated “the arrogance of power – of a power that has had no accountability, total impunity – and it’s created a toxic culture of oppression”.

The New York Times first reported Khanna’s account on Saturday morning. He told the outlet: “I felt powerless in that situation, which is not an easy thing, as I have a lot of privilege in life.

Armed men block a vehicle. — Israeli settlers block Ro Khanna’s convoy in Khirbet Zanuta, according to his press team, during a visit to the West Bank on 8 July 2026. Photograph: Ro Khanna’s press team/Reuters

“Imagine how people feel every day, Palestinians under the occupation, if they could make an American congressperson feel powerless for 90 minutes.”

Khanna said he and his group were ultimately able to continue traveling after contacting the US embassy and Israeli police.

The Israeli military said troops and police responded after receiving a report that settlers were obstructing vehicles near Khirbet Zanuta, according to Reuters.

Khirbet Zanuta is a Palestinian hamlet whose residents were forced to leave in the wake of violent settler raids after the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023.

Asked by Reuters whether he intends to run for president, Khanna replied: “I’m strongly considering it. And I’m more resolved to consider it after this trip.”

More than 700,000 Israelis reside in settlements across the occupied West Bank including East Jerusalem. The United Nations considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank to be illegal, and Israel has faced repeated criticism over violence and other actions by settlers in the territory.

Since Israel took control of the West Bank in 1967, restrictions imposed there have prevented the territory from developing a self-sustaining economy. Those restrictions intensified significantly after the deadly 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Nearly 300,000 Palestinians have lost employment in the West Bank and Israel.

A June report issued by a UN independent international commission of inquiry concluded that “Israeli authorities and security forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children resulting in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in the Gaza Strip and war crimes in the West Bank”.

According to data from human rights organisation Yesh Din, no Israeli has been indicted for the killing of a Palestinian since October 2023.

Khanna has been one of the most outspoken critics in the US Congress of the war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, often clashing with his own party’s establishment. In May, he released a video criticizing the Democratic National Committee’s incomplete postmortem report on the defeat that the party suffered at the hands of Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

The postmortem did not mention Gaza. In his video, Khanna said: “As someone who campaigned in Michigan and Wisconsin, let me tell you – one of the reasons we lost is our blank check to Israel and [prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahu while they committed genocide in Gaza.

“We must speak and confront hard truths if this party is to win” the 2028 presidential election, he added.

Reuters contributed reporting

Potential of 'mirror life' technology has Doomsday Clock scientists alarmed. This is why.

Extract from ABC News

59 minutes ago

Stylistic model of a section of a clock with the hands pointed towards midnight and sign saying 'It is 85 seconds to midnight'. — The Doomsday Clock moved closer to midnight than ever before in January this year. (Supplied: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

After they made the atomic bomb, scientists came up with the Doomsday Clock.

The symbolic clock, launched by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, warned how close humanity might be to destroying itself in the form of "minutes to midnight".

Since 1947, its hands have been moved closer and further away from midnight in response to major events such as nuclear weapons proliferation, the emerging understanding of climate change, or new and dangerous technologies.

This year, for the first time, a theoretical biological technology called "mirror life" was included in the list of threats that prompted scientists to move the clock's hands closer to midnight.

David Relman, a microbiologist at Stanford University and a member of the board of experts who advises clock movements, says such life has the potential to be calamitous.

"This might be as close to an existential threat of a biological sort as we have considered so far."

The catastrophic risk of mirror life

Mirror life is the name scientists have given to a theoretical type of synthetic bacteria that, if made, could grow with almost no hindrance.

It would do this by being chemically identical, but geometrically different, to naturally occurring bacteria.

Many of the molecules that make up life, including proteins and DNA, can be formed in two separate ways, with one the mirror image of the other.

Chemists call this property "chirality", which comes from the ancient Greek word for "hand". Hands, in fact, share the same mirror geometry: your left hand is the same shape as your right, but it still won't fit into a right-handed glove.

Two computer models of molecules, made of identical parts, with one the mirror image of the other, over a pair of hands. — The molecules which form proteins are all "left-handed": it's possible to make proteins from identical "right-handed" molecules, but they don't exist naturally. (NASA via Wikimedia Commons)

All life on Earth has just one type of chiral DNA and proteins. DNA is always "right-handed", while most protein components are "left-handed".

Researchers can make DNA and proteins with the opposite handedness in labs, but they don't occur naturally.

In recent years, mirror proteins with unnatural handedness have shown promise as potential medical treatments. The immune system doesn't recognise them, so they don't prompt immune reactions and could work in the body for much longer.

But, for the same reason that individual proteins could be helpful, an entire cell constructed from wrong-handed proteins and DNA could be dangerous.

Grayscale image of rod-shaped bacteria. — A first attempt at mirror life would likely be a very weak and inefficient cell, but later generations could get better. (US NIAID via Wikimedia Commons)

A mirror bacterium could use the environment's nutrients to multiply, and it wouldn't face immune resistance from humans, plants, or any other life form it infected.

"This thing would grow, but it wouldn't be constrained," Professor Relman says.

"The result of that would be death or displacement of many, many species of life on the planet, and even potential disruption of the basic geochemical cycles that maintain the environment."

Nor could mirror life reliably be contained in a laboratory, according to Professor Relman.

"We have no laboratories that have been perfect in preventing escape. None."

How dangerous could mirror life get?

Mirror life is not an imminent threat. There's a suite of difficult scientific problems that need to be solved before any research lab could make it, which Professor Relman estimates would take years of work and upwards of a billion dollars in funding.

Right now, no-one is enthusiastic about doing or funding that work.

Photo portrait of a man in a button-down shirt smiling at the camera. — Professor Relman, who is a member of the Doomsday Clock expert panel, says mirror life has the potential to be calamitous. (Supplied: David Relman)

Professor Relman was one of several dozen co-authors on a 2024 paper in the journal Science, which called for a halt to attempts to make mirror life.

"Our conclusions were embraced by essentially all of the scientists who had been pursuing mirror life, and they said, 'We now realise this was a really stupid thing to have been doing,'" Professor Relman says.

But Ricard Solé, from the Universitat Pompeau Fabra in Barcelona, isn't so sure mirror life may be inherently dangerous.

He's recently co-authored a preprint (non-peer reviewed) study modelling how potential mirror bacteria could multiply in an ecosystem.

Their study suggested that mirror life would struggle to find the nutrients it needs to grow, because it would be outcompeted by naturally occurring organisms.

"We know that 95 per cent of invaders fail, and that's because biodiversity is a very strong firewall," Professor Solé says.

He worries that stringent bans on mirror life research could halt useful avenues of science. Professor Solé and his colleagues are meeting with co-authors from the Science paper to discuss their research.

"I hope this is a constructive thing, that helps to maybe join forces and push research in some interesting direction," he says.

Regulating risky technology

Mirror life is far from the first dangerous biological technology. Countries and international bodies have regulated a number of technologies over the years that pose varying levels of risk, like genetic modification and stem cell research.

Two plastic models of molecules, made of identical parts, with one the mirror image of the other. — Scientists have theorised about the possibility of opposite-handed life forms since chirality was first identified. (ABC News: Ellen Phiddian)

Christopher Rudge, a researcher in human health law at the University of Sydney, says mirror life is high risk because it's "irreversible": once made, there's no reliable way to unmake it.

"When things are irreversible, prohibition is the natural regulatory response. The danger is just too high," Dr Rudge says.

But these bans need to be carefully developed, or they risk capturing less risky areas of science that could prove useful.

Individual mirror proteins, for instance, could still be good medicines, and there are ways to make them without any chance they'd assemble into a self-replicating cell.

"The goal isn't to slow science down. It's to keep the handful of genuinely unrecallable experiments off the table while we get on with everything else," Dr Rudge says.

Man in a shirt and brown coat stands outside and smiles at camera. — Dr Rudge says it's important to get the wording right when developing regulations on dangerous scientific technologies. (Supplied: Maja Baska)

Patrick Foong, a researcher in law at Western Sydney University, says expert discussions are an important first step in moderating biological threats, but the public eventually needs to be involved.

"Scientists have a moral duty to educate the public and to invite debates on this kind of matter."

Eventually, he says, legislation and "soft law" can work together to prevent threats: legislation can put up strict guardrails, while more detailed guidelines can allow some flexibility when research prompts new directions.

Realising their own dangers

This year the Doomsday clock shifted four seconds closer to midnight; it only moved one second in 2025.

Mirror life was one of four biological dangers Professor Relman and his colleagues cited when moving the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.

Biological weaponry, AI in biological design, and the degradation of trust and funding in the US health system were also threats.

At 85 seconds it is now the closest to midnight than it has ever been.

Professor Relman says there isn't an exact science to deciding new times.

"We want the announced clock time to be useful in moving public opinion and motivating action," he says.

The experts advising the Doomsday Clock are now starting to discuss whether its time should be changed again in 2027.

A human hand moves the minute hand on a model clock towards midnight. — The Doomsday Clock now aims to highlight many technologies that pose a serious risk to the world. (Supplied: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)

Professor Relman says he's even more concerned by some of the listed biological threats than he was a year ago — particularly the convergence of AI and biological tools.

But on the spectre of mirror life, he's cautiously optimistic.

"My hope is that the public will look at this and go, well, here's at least one example where scientists seem to be able to largely self-regulate themselves and make the right call," he says.

The mirror life question is far from answered, but the careful discussions happening around it might show that researchers can recognise a threat of their own making.

Professor Relman hopes this will bolster us against another big risk: declining trust in science.

"I'm hoping that we can start to rebuild the trust that's been lost by doing more of that."

Rare glimpse into Discovery expedition helps scientist better understand the present.

Extract from ABC News

By Syan Vallance in London

Topic:History

45 minutes ago

A black and white image of an emperor penguin captured during Shackleton's expedition. — Newly released images offer a public insight into Ernest Shackleton's expedition in the early 1900s. (Supplied: Royal Society)

In short:

Newly released records offer a rare glimpse into the historic Discovery expedition to Antarctica in the early 1900s.

The archive features photographs, notebooks, images and charts documenting the conditions the expedition endured.

What's next?

Australian researchers are studying the data and observations to better understand long-term weather patterns.

Hidden for more than a century, a remarkable collection of Australian and Antarctic history has been revealed to the public for the first time.

The Royal Society in London has launched a digital archive of more than 50,000 meteorological images spanning three centuries.

It includes weather observations by Louis "Bunny" Bernacchi, the only Australian on Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton's Discovery expedition to Antarctica in the early 1900s.

Australian physicist Louis Bernacchi stands in a doorway surrounded by ice on Antarctica — Physicist Louis "Bunny" Bernacchi was the only Australian to go on the expedition. (Supplied: Royal Society)

The archive features photographs, notebooks, images and charts, offering a rare glimpse into both the science of the expedition and the people who carried it out.

"You actually get to see what they're doing on a daily basis," Royal Society historian Louisiane Ferlier told the ABC.

"Especially the mid-winter celebrations when they just have their beer and they have done the bunting themselves, they've decorated all of the mess … you can actually see they're trying to just go through the very dark winter months."

Notebooks display weather readings and images from the early 1900s — The Royal Society collection includes thousands of weather observations from Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expeditions. (ABC News: Alex Parsons)

The collection also reveals how Mr Bernacchi came to join the expedition.

The Tasmanian was not the first choice.

"One of the archives that we have here is a letter by the physicist who had been chosen to go on the Discovery expedition," Dr Ferlier said.

"He was dismissed, supposedly because of his teeth. He's quite adamant that his teeth are actually fine … and says, is it personal?" she laughed.

Louisiane Ferlier smiles while standing inside the Royal Society in London. — Louisiane Ferlier says the historical weather observations are helping modern scientists understand long-term patterns. (ABC News: Alex Parsons)

Whatever the reason, his dismissal opened the door for Mr Bernacchi to make history.

Now, the public can access his observations, diagrams and photographs online, thanks to almost 10 years of digitising work by Royal Society historians.

Frozen thermometers, hangover-induced errors

A historical image of penguins captured during the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica — The expedition documents a group of approximately 25 emperor penguins on the sea ice near Cape Crozier, at the eastern edge of Ross Island. (Supplied: Royal Society)

While the Discovery expedition was scientifically groundbreaking, the collection shows its scientists struggled on the ground.

In some cases, thermometers froze over.

In others, the instruments were misused.

"All of the instruments that were designed in Britain had never been in those conditions, so it was necessary for science to actually try to see how they would perform," Dr Ferlier said.

Two black and white photos of a tall ship surrounded by ice are bound in a book — Ernest Shackleton and nine other men took their own photographs during the expedition. (ABC News: Alex Parsons)

Antarctica's brutal conditions explained some gaps in the data, but Dr Ferlier said other mistakes came down to human error.

"You can see gaps in the observations … for instance, they were celebrating midwinter and they were too drunk to take the observations, but also gaps in when they're forgetting to just replace a roll," she said.

While the errors rendered some of their work unusable, the expedition gathered reams of invaluable data still useful today.

Historical weather observations feature in archive

The Discovery expedition is just one of many scientific projects featured in the new online archive, with the oldest records dating back as far as 1706.

The Royal Society historians told the ABC they believed the collection included the earliest meteorological record made in Australia: a book of weather observations taken on board a ship in Port Jackson in 1788.

Dr Ferlier said that predated other Australian weather records by about 50 years.

Black and white photos from Shackleton's Antarctic expedition sit in bound books — Insights from the expedition help modern scientists better understand long-term weather patterns. (ABC News: Alex Parsons)

The archive also featured a Meteorological Register for 1840 from Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), painstakingly filled out by Thomas James Lempriere.

The register showed a table of daily observations including barometric pressure, temperature and wind direction.

Presented as a dodecagon, every very tiny square represented one observation for one day throughout the course of the year.

A dodecagon showing daily weather recordings over a course of a year in 1840 — A register showing a year's worth of weather observations from Port Arthur is in the archive. (Supplied: Royal Society)

Antarctic weather data shaping modern understanding

The newly digitised collection does not just include original records, but scientists' interpretations of them in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Taken together, they have helped modern day scientists understand how the past informs the present.

A leather bound book sits on a desk with gold lettering that reads: National Antarctic Expedition 1901-4 — The collection includes six bound volumes covering 944 photographic prints from Ernest Shackleton's expedition. (ABC News: Alex Parsons)

"Scientists can now use the data … and look at what the models are doing and whether the historical data confirms what they're doing backwards, which is called reanalysis," Dr Ferlier said.

"You have scientists in Australia in particular who have been looking at those records, looking at going as far back as they can to try reconstruct the historical weather — not just to compare, but to understand the trends in the long term.

"So they are really useful records with scientists today."